Lost in Rome (3 page)

“Meataball!
Mangia!
” Aunt Maria called.

He hustled, his belly swinging beneath him, to lap up whatever had just been set on the floor for him to eat.

I explained, “Once I know someone's pizza type, I can create a couple with someone else based on
their
pizza type.”

Jane asked, “Like a romantic couple?”

“She's only done it once,” Gianna interjected.

I clarified, “I've only
actually
done it once, like for real, but I've made lots more couples in my head. Those should count.”

“And the one you did for real, it worked?” Jane asked.

“So far,” I said.

“It's only been a few weeks,” Gianna said.

“Six,” I said.

“This is very cool,” Jane said. “You're like a live, one-girl dating service.”

“Except that dating services use science or formulas,” Gianna said.

“But in Italy, people like tradition. I think they'd be excited about a good old-fashioned matchmaker that they can meet face-to-face right here in a pizzeria in Rome,” Jane replied.

“And,” I added, “if dating services ever suddenly just disappear, due to something like a zombie apocalypse, we'll have an experienced matchmaker ready to go.”

“Zombies?” Jane's face scrunched.

I remembered what Dad had said about cooling it with my stories. “Or something like zombies,” I said.

Gianna went upstairs with Jane, while I went to the kitchen to see Aunt Maria.

“This is AJ.” Aunt Maria pointed to a boy about my age who was tearing romaine lettuce into bite-size pieces. “And this is Vito.” She indicated a man pounding chicken breast with a wooden mallet. “He no speak English.” She said something to him in Italian, and he waved to me.

“
Buongiorno
,” he said.

I waved back with a smile.

To AJ she said, “This is Lucy. I told you about her. Please show her the things around here.” Aunt Maria took off her apron and hung it carefully on a hook. “I go to the bank and be here in one hour.” With her black purse over her shoulder, she left through the back door.

“Hey,” AJ said to me, and held out his fist for a bump, which I gave. Nothing about AJ seemed Italian: bushy blond hair, blue eyes, light skin. “Your aunt told me a lot about you.”

“You know about me, but I don't know anything about you,” I said. “Doesn't seem fair. What's your story, AJ?”

“Let's see, I've been working here for about a year.”

“Do a lot of Americans work at pizzerias in Italy?” I asked.

“Hardly any,” he said. “My dad was transferred here for his job. I started coming in here every day to pick up dinner. Sometimes I would help Maria talk to tourists or translate things for her.”

“You speak Italian?”

“Not like, fluent, but I took a class in school and I had a special tutor for a few months before we moved here.” He continued, “Anyway, I asked her if I could have a job. I needed the money and she needed a translator and I had some experience as a busboy. The waiter quit, so now I'm a one-man show. Let me show you around.” He pointed to glass containers. “These hold oil.”

“Got it. Oil.”

He walked past the ovens. “This is where we cook the pizza.”

“Why are they empty?”

He pointed to the dining room. “No customers.” I looked at my watch. It was still set to Pennsylvania time, where it was nine in the morning. “What time is it?”

He pulled his phone out of his back pocket and checked. “Three.”

“So you'll probably start getting ready for the dinner crowd soon,” I said.

AJ laughed. “We can roll out some dough, but since Pizzeria de Roma reopened, we don't get crowds the way we used to. In fact, if something major doesn't happen soon, your aunt will probably close this place.”

“Close it? It's been in the family for years,” I said. I pointed to a faded black-and-white picture that hung on a wall in the dining room. The glass covering the picture was smudged with grease. “Do you know what this is a picture of?”

He shrugged.

“These are my great-grandparents and their six children.” I pointed. “This is Aunt Maria, and this little boy is my grandfather, Luciano—I'm named after him. He left for America with his brother when he was only eight.”

AJ looked unimpressed, so I added, “It took ten stormy nights by sea for them to arrive in America. They'd lost their shoes and had to walk miles through snow to meet people they were going to live with. They lost a few toes but managed to start a family.”
Man, I could make up a good story.

He'd perked up around “stormy night.” I showed him another picture. “And this small house was the original Amore Pizzeria. My great-grandparents started making pizza and invited friends over on Sunday nights. The crowd grew, so they added tables into their living room. People started placing orders to bring the pizza to their own homes. Soon they had so many customers that they built a restaurant at the end of a narrow cobblestone street near Fontana del Cuore. It's been a landmark ever since.”

At the last sec, I added, “It's rumored that the Pope himself orders his pizza from here under a different name.”

AJ raised his eyebrows at me and said, “I think maybe you made that part up.”

Sometimes a story needs extra spice. My teachers all say I'm good at those little details that make a story really interesting. Although I might go overboard sometimes.

“You may not be able to relate to this the way I can, but trust me, Amore Pizzeria can't close. I'll do whatever it takes to keep it open,” I promised.

“How are you going to do that?” AJ asked.

I paused. “I don't know yet, but I will!”

He lifted his hands in an
I give up
gesture. “I believe you. I'll even help.”

“Really? Why?”

“I might not be related to Maria, but I like her and I like this job. I need to save money.”

“Well, let's get started with a little old-fashioned detective work,” I said.

He scratched his head, signaling that he didn't understand what I meant.

“We need to spy—check out Pizzeria de Roma,” I explained. “To understand what we're dealing with.”

“I'm in, but don't tell Maria. She wouldn't like us going to that place.”

“Roger that.” I walked to the door. “
Andiamo
.” I'd figured out that meant “Let's go.”

We strolled down the alley, which was complete with a trio of stray cats who, all put together, were smaller than Meataball. The stores—a bakery, a handbag store, and a butcher shop—that lined the quiet street were dark, closed, out of business. Sprigs of ivy that had sprung up between the cobblestones crept up the buildings' facades, and terra-cotta pots were overgrown with weeds.

“What happened to the stores?” I asked.

“The same thing that's happening at Amore,” AJ said. “At the end of this road is a piazza built around the Fontana del Cuore. There are bigger, brighter, and more modern stores there,” he explained. “They may not be better, but you know what they say . . . location, location, location.”

We came to the end of the alley.

I had to shade my eyes from the sun, which drenched the crowd of people in the square. It bustled with tourists snapping pictures of the ancient Roman architecture, throwing coins into the Fontana del Cuore, kissing under marble statues, and painting at easels. I had to admit that both the beauty and excitement attracted me.

There was one wide main street that led people, bikes, and motor scooters to and from the piazza. The little roads and alleyways off the square were like unnecessary tentacles around the big attraction that had everything: shops, cafés, restaurants, and carts selling souvenirs, trinkets, key chains, and Pinocchio puppets. It was strange that the crowds and hubbub were so close to Amore Pizzeria without any of it being seen. Of course, that also meant that all these people couldn't see Amore either. That was a problem.

“Isn't there a story about this fountain? I think Uncle Ferdinando told it to me once, but I can't remember it.”

“You throw a coin in and wish for your true love, blah blah blah.”

“Blah blah blah? You're such a guy.” I looked into the fountain. There were enough coins to make someone very rich. Apparently, lots of people were looking for their true love.

Shining on the other side of the Fontana, like the big deal of the piazza, were multicolored letters spelling
PIZZERIA DE ROMA
. We entered. Inside, a small group of people waited near a podium for the hostess to seat them.

“I'm going to the restroom,” I said, and followed an arrow down a hall. There were three doors. Two were restrooms. The third was cracked open, so I peeked in. It was a small office. There was a red motorcycle-type helmet on a desk and a pile of clothes—jeans, oxford shirt—on the floor. I wanted to go in and snoop around at the papers and files on the desk, but I was too nervous.

When I returned to AJ, he had moved up a bit in the line. It seemed like the hostess was super slow. The place wasn't even that busy!

“Where are you from?” I asked AJ.

“I was born in California.”

“And what are you saving money for?” I asked.

“A new guitar,” he said. “Right now I play the ukulele.”

I asked, “Can you sing?”

“Sure. Who can't sing?”

“Well, everyone thinks they can sing, but not many actually can. Let me hear,” I said.

“Now? Here?” He pointed out that we were in a crowded line.

“No time like the present,” I said.

“Unless we were in the past or the future,” he suggested.

I thought. “Maybe. But we're not. So, stop stalling, SpongeBob SongPants.”

AJ cleared his throat. “All right.” He sang, “Pizza! Ohhhh, how I love pizza!! Pizza, ba-a-a-by.”

Maybe I should tell you about AJ's singing: It wasn't great, but it didn't matter, because he was cute in a California surfer kinda way. The cute and not-great (okay, “bad”) singing combo somehow worked for him.

I started clapping, and everyone else joined in. A few people hooted and whooped. The crowd parted, creating a path for us to move to the front of the line. We got seated right away. I guess they must've been hungry for live music if they thought
that
was good.

Pizzeria de Roma was definitely decorated to stand out. The lights were bright, and the walls were painted lime green. It looked more like an American frozen yogurt place than a pizzeria in Rome. There was a stage and a dance floor, both covered with old-fashioned pinball machines that were unused and seemed out of place.

I studied the menu, which was not only in Italian but also in English, Spanish, French, and German. We ordered two Aranciatas and three kinds of pizza. I chose eggplant and sun-dried tomatoes. AJ went with two orders of anchovy.
Blech!

Not surprisingly, they didn't have ham and pineapple (my fave)—that was more of an American thing.

“What do you think of this place?” AJ asked.

“It's nice, I guess. Exciting and colorful, but it lacks . . . something. . . .”

“What?” he asked.

“Tradition,” I said. “I don't even feel like I'm in Italy. I don't even feel like I'm in a pizza place. I mean, this could be an arcade in Pennsylvania.”

He looked around. “Yup. You're exactly right.” He sipped his soda. “So, Lucy, what do you do for fun in Amer—” He snapped the menu open in front of his face.

“What are you doing?”

He stretched his mouth around the menu to talk, but kept the rest of his face hidden. “Lorenzo,” he whispered.

I glanced around and caught a glimpse of him. He wore a crisply ironed white shirt with the Pizzeria de Roma logo and his name on the lapel and matching white pants under a black apron that was tied at the waist.