Rewind and Play

2013

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Samuel

“Ah, you mean the birthday party I came to so Alice could have a go at Nico?” I find myself asking, keeping my face neutral. Alice probably forgot about it. I throw a glance in her direction, but she still looks slightly dazed. Despite these many years, I can still read her like an open book. She seems flustered, and overheating.

“Yeah, I had forgotten about it… You were one of the cool kids, you know. If you had not come…” starts Clara, with an amused expression. She has not changed much, which is a good thing, if you ask me.

“It would have been carnage, I know.”

Alice looks at me, seemingly surprised I can remember that night from many years ago down to our conversations.

It’s bizarre. I have not seen Alice in, give or take, fifteen years, and I can’t shake the feeling that it was yesterday. For a very short period of time, she was my best friend, and the focus of many, if not all, my thoughts. Not that I did a great job at letting her know.

But we still shared part of that traumatic event that is called puberty, and that will bond us forevermore.

I don’t feel much different from that optimistic, jokey, gangly person I was when I was eighteen. I still think a joke is a remedy for most ailments.

Alice looks like the same nerdy bookworm who loved music and was mostly happy within her own company, except a 2.0 version of that, one that doesn’t mind mingling with people, with the notable exception of me, it appears.

I must add that, despite the fact that she clearly put on the first things she found in her wardrobe, Alice is astonishingly, well, hot.

The short hair suits her, cut close enough to her skin to curl only slightly, and messily, but in in a charming way, all around her face. She looks like she has taken good care of herself, and she has grown to like tattoos, which I approve of, for obvious reasons. There’s a slightly puzzling array of them showing on the skin I can see: a little Spongebob, a heart made with rope, two small swallows chasing one another, a dagger and a couple of stars.

I wonder, not daring to hope as of yet, if her taste in music is still up to par.

I stop ogling her in time to hear her chirp: “Ah, you did save my ass, Marchetti, that night.”

The reference is not lost on me and I feel my face relax into a smile. Giving Alice my cheekiest grin, I pinch her cheek lightly. I do it without thinking, and her eyes go wide; a shot of electricity travels from her skin to mine and, if I thought I could play it better than her, I was wrong. I find myself as lost as she is and all I can do is stammer: “My pleasure, I live to serve.”

It now clicks that me and Diego, the friend I’m out with, are occupying the women’s stools. Diego is having a field day with the whole scene, by the way. The bastard.

I give him a nod and we hop off the seats, presenting them to Alice and Clara: “Apologies for stealing your seats, ladies. What can I offer you to make you forgive me?”

Clara turns to Una, who is also visibly enjoying this whole interaction: “Una, bella, can we please have two more gins? Best gin you have, since this one is paying, apparently.”

Alice gives Clara a slow clap and a small bow, and I try my best to look offended, but I can’t keep the smile from spreading on my face.

“So, how’s everyone doing?” comes the booming voice of Piotr, who has appeared from the other room. In small doses, he’s all right.

I make some introductions, because no one seems to know Diego. After a couple of minutes of chatting about nothing, Alice slaps her head with a hand: “Diego, you are doctor Bianchi’s son!”

Diego, who’s one of my best friends and who’s the gentlest soul, smiles: “That I am.”

Alice nudges me: “Doctor Bianchi has been a family friend since forever, did you know that, Sami? Do you still play guitar in that band…?”

I ignore the sudden flutter I feel when she says my name. She’s the only one calling me that.

“I do, you have good memory, Alice. It’s a Led Zeppelin tribute band. But I also have a couple of other groups and I teach kids at the music school, where Una also works.”

Alice is looking at him, and then laughs like she has just remembered something: “I think my mom wants you to marry my sister…”

“Laura? I think the last time I saw her she was in nappies!”

“Well, she is almost legal now, so I’d say my mother will be knocking at your door soon enough.”

Alice is on a roll, a slight flush on her neck I better not to be caught staring at: “You know, Anna has always made her personal opinions known. Diego is a great catch, the right age, son of a doctor…” she ticks off points on the tips of her fingers, then adds: “She wanted me to marry this one,” her thumb bobbing in my direction.

I see that her habit of not having much of a filter has also stayed.

I can’t help laughing: “You never told me that!”

Alice huffs: “Well, that was none of your business, and I was not going to be shipped away to the first petitioner, or the dude I was sitting next to on the bus five minutes every day, no matter how pretty he was.”

“At least I am pretty, I suppose…”

“Like you know you aren’t…”

I make a show at looking at my fingernails: “I have always been lucky with the ladies, that much is true.”

“Not true, and especially not true with the last one…” chimes in Una from the bar, with an eyeroll.

Alice looks from her to me, puzzled.

I really, really don’t want to talk about it.  It’s not like I have actively been hiding something, but when we got out tonight, I was not expecting to cross paths with Alice Giannelli. Frankly, I’m still reeling. I want to enjoy her while she’s in my orbit, tonight, or maybe a little more, if I can make the connection last as long as she’s here, probably just visiting for a couple of days. Nothing wrong with that.

That’s probably why when I snap: “Thank you very much for your opinion, Una, but that is not relevant at the moment,” I feel bad, because it’s not her fault, either.

I send an apologetic look in Una’s direction, together with a mouthed “sorry”.

“So,” coughs Alice, immediately catching up with the weird vibe, “in case you haven’t heard it yet, I am here to help with Il Cavallino, since I am currently unemployed and taking a break from boring office work. I just wanted you to hear it from me before someone gives you the wrong tale.”

Oh shit. Is she here to stay? For a while, at least?

Just say something, Samuel: “Is Madrid nice? I’ve never been there myself, but I heard it’s pretty lovely.”

“You don’t want her to start talking about Madrid, or you’ll never hear the end of it” interjects Clara, with an eyeroll.  

“She is not wrong” says Alice bashfully, “I can talk about Madrid for hours on end, so maybe we will leave that for another time. Overall? A great place to live, plenty of bars and entertainment, and people are lovely, but I am struggling a little to find something I love to do. What about you? I heard you are a famous entrepreneur now…”

“Ah, were you stalking me, Giannelli? I am touched.”

Clara steps between us, a glass of gin and tonic in each hand. She hands Alice one: “Girl, get this. I am going to go talk to Una on the other side of the bar so you two can catch up properly.”

By the time either of us is even thinking of calling her back, she’s gone. Diego waves at us and drags Piotr away with him.

I move to occupy the vacant stool. The place is noisy, so I have to grab Alice’s and pull it toward me. It’s at the same time a great and a terrible idea, because the intimacy of the two of us catching up and the way her knees between mine make me feel like I’m a teenager all over again.

“So,” I end up saying, looking her in the eye.

“Long time no see,” Alice says, a slow, real, smile spreading on her face. She is recovering from the shock, while I feel like the reality of having Alice here is just starting to sink in.

For a second, we just take one another in.

Then I clink my glass against hers: “To finding our friends again.”

Because that’s what we were and what we definitely must be now.

“Cheers to that.”

I see her gaze dip towards my arm, where the Chinese dragon I got by the guy in Milan who started me in this madness of a job is coiling up my body, disappearing under the shirt’s rolled-up sleeve.

“Tell me, Sami, how did it all start?”

“You know how much I loved drawing. I have always had something related to art in mind. When I finished secondary school…” I hesitate for a second, not wanting to dig up the past, just yet. I move on swiftly: “I tried working in an office as a graphic designer, but I soon discovered office life wasn’t for me. So, I tried my luck with tattoos while I was putting aside some money as a bricklayer and… here I am. I also do some small paint jobs, because sure, painting is the same as drawing but with bigger brushes and less precision, in a way”.

I can feel myself puffing up with pride. And I am proud. It’s difficult to be a small entrepreneur in Italy, with so much red tape and so much bureaucracy.

“It’s amazing, Sami,” Alice says, and I can see she means it.

Back in the day, she knew that studying bored me. Alice could always find something interesting in whatever she was studying. Books be books, she used to say.

“I am happy someone is pleased,” I reply, not fully able to hide the slight edge to my voice. Alice’s brows furrow slightly, because of course she’s caught a vibe and knows there’s more to the story.

However, I want tonight to be about celebrating that we found one another again.

“I will come by to make an appointment.” Blessedly, Alice moves on swiftly.  “I love to get tattoos that remind me of places and I don’t have any from here.”

“I would be honoured, Ali.”

She makes a stern face: “I hope you are good enough, Sami…”

“You will have to wait and see, won’t you?”

“I will swing by next week; do we have a deal? I have an idea for my arm…”

Alice’s mouth is what normally betrays her. For me, it’s that sometimes my body acts before my brain can catch up so by the time I realise it, I am leaning forward and I am tracing the tattoos scattered on her right arm with a finger, stopping at the roped heart.

Alice is looking at me, eyes big, baffled. It’s such a throw-back reaction that I can’t help but chuckle: “Some things never change…”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing” I say, moving my hand away. She still finds my touchiness quite startling, evidently. I still find it endearing, and I can feel the heat of her skin under my fingertips: “I like the heart better. I love old school tattoos; that’s my main style.”

“That is very good news,” says Alice, “Because it is my favourite style too.”

“Tell you what: come by next week. I will make out something for you for free, something small, and if you like it, we can talk about the bigger project. Deal?”

“That’s very generous of you, Sami. I would say too generous. It’s your livelihood we are talking about.”

“Consider it my apology for being an asshole when you wanted to go out with Nico, do you remember?”

Alice’s startled stare tells me she does remember, but her mouth tells me she is pretending she doesn’t: “Vaguely… No need to resurrect my early-life love failures, Marchetti. I’ve got plenty in the recent years to think about.” A small, self-conscious, laugh leaves her.

“You can tell me all about those when you come get your free tattoo. I mean it, Alice. It’s my business we are talking about, I know, but it doesn’t happen often that the person…” I fumble a little, because I am not sure what is about to come out of my mouth is going to do me, or her, any good: “…It would be an honour to have you swing by.”

Alice hesitates for a couple of seconds, realising I am not going to yield on this one. Mercifully, she doesn’t seem to give my words too much of a meaning: “Ok, then, but I want no discounts on the actual piece I am going to get from you as a customer.”

“You got yourself a deal.”

Alice

I wake up with a glorious headache, which is, in my modest opinion, always the result of a great night out. The “night” ended at around ten o’clock but hey, that’s still party time for a place like Castelnuovo and I am thankful for having enjoyed a full night’s rest. Thanks to that, I don’t feel like a bus has just run me over.

Sure, I am currently fidgeting in the bed, trying to remember what happened after I told Sami that I am definitely going to get a tattoo in his studio, and it comes to me in a rush: Una and Clara approaching from the sidelines with shot glasses. A groan leaves my mouth.

It’s the last time I do shots. For real, this time.

Nothing good ever comes from shots. And memories of a night out are always oh so blurry, after downing that yuck liquid fire.

I would have loved nothing more than to sit somewhere quiet and talk to Samuel, but Clara and Una had a different idea about how that specific aperitivo was going to end.

Memories come in the form of snapshots: Samuel drinking back the shot with a challenging look directed at me. Me, equally defiantly, downing mine. The four of us debating (shouting) about which one was our favourite series and if Leslie Knope was cute or obnoxious. We all agreed it was time for Parks & Rec to end, now.

Then a couple more people from the village joined in when the conversation moved, as loudly, to music: Diego was adamant that nothing new was ever invented after the Seventies, but then, Led Zeppelin, so, duh.

Piotr and Lucia also had very strong opinions on U2, and ended up having a shouting match with Samuel and me, who despised them deeply. I am relieved by the fact that Samuel’s taste has nothing but improved over the years. He stood firmly his ground besides me fighting our corner (the corner of good music, we were both proud to say).

A lot of these fragmented memories keep circling back to Samuel: his easy laugh, that fucking dimple, the way every now and again he turned to look at me like he couldn’t believe she I was really there, trying and failing spectacularly at disguising his pleasure.

A comment, made in passing by Una: “Haven’t seen you that upbeat in a long time, Marchetti,” and his reaction, a long middle finger held up in the air. I wonder who this current girlfriend, mentioned but not spoken of, is. I don’t want to, but I have to admit I felt a little disappointed when I learnt that she exists.

When I get up to get changed for thelunch shift, I am in a state I would describe as pleasantly tired. Samuel’s face, older but somewhat even more handsome than I remember, stays with me all day long.