Chapter One
I don’t know how I got here.
Not here here, in the back of my parents’ car, heading down the Beltway toward the airport. I mean I don’t know how I got to be the one from my school who’s going to Rome.
“Today,” I whisper to myself. “I can’t believe it’s already—”
My dad swears under his breath. Traffic has come to a complete standstill. My mom sighs and searches her nav app for a nonexistent alternative route, all panicky about being late. I have plenty of time—my plane doesn’t leave for three-plus hours—but we’re meeting Sofia, the student from Italy who I’m switching places with. She’ll do English immersion here, living with my family, while I live with her parents, the Rossis.
Sofia’s plane landed five minutes ago. We’re still fifteen minutes away.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “She needs to go through customs first.” Not that I’m an expert on international travel, but I’ve done my homework. At least about that. “We’ll be there.”
“And if we aren’t…” My mom turns around, a dark strand of hair trying to cover the worry crease between her eyebrows. “How would you feel, Tess, if the Rossis aren’t there to meet you?”
She has a point—I’d probably crumple in the middle of the Rome airport, heart pounding, tears gushing until I finally got the sense to call my host family or my extended family who lives in Italy still.
They’re why I applied to Exchange Roma in the first place. Aside from my dad, my great-aunt and cousins are my only direct link to my grandfather, who I call Nonno. I used to beg Nonno to take me to Italy so I could see and taste and feel the village where he was born and after wander the streets of Rome where he grew up. “But you’ve been,” he’d say. I’d remind him I was four years old at the time, I could barely remember anything, and besides, I wanted to see Italy with him. “Someday,” he’d say. “Someday.” But he passed away before that could happen.
I poured all that into my application essay. And though I don’t really speak Italian and though there were seventeen other applicants to the program from my school, I was the one who got accepted. The essay must have had something to do with it.
My mom sighs again and shifts her anxiety from the traffic to me. “You have everything, right, Tess? Phone, laptop, chargers, passport?”
I’ve been basically attached to my passport since this entire fantasy came true. I wave it at her for the third time today. And traffic magically clears.
My dad starts driving like a wild man. He makes it to the airport twenty-three minutes after Sofia’s plane landed, pulls to a screech near the airport entrance, shoos my mom and me out of the car, then goes to park. I humor my mom and sprint with her toward the gates.
Fifteen minutes later, Sofia finally comes striding out from the security area like she’s a supermodel on a runway, debuting impeccably chic, totally wrinkle-free black clothes that cannot have traveled thousands of miles. Her mass of long, dark hair frames her heart-shaped face and flows behind her in near slow motion.
I knew she was gorgeous—we’ve FaceTimed her and her parents weekly since we were paired up—but seeing her in person… Is there a step above breathtaking? Even her long, manicured fingernails are perfect. If every girl in Italy is like Sofia, I’ll be utterly ignorable.
She races up and gives us each the double-cheek kiss. “Ciao! Ciao! Ciao! Famiglia Alessandro! Finally! We meet, how you say? Head-to-head. No, no. Face-to-face!”
“Face-to-face! Yes!” I say, trying to sound much more interesting than I am. If only I had a few days to absorb this aura she’s beaming out.
My dad, a good three inches shorter than Sofia, grabs her carry-on, gets that sparkle in his eyes, and tries to show off his Italian. “Benvenuto a Washington, DC. Speriamo che lo…”
She waves him off. “We keep the talk with the English. More easy for you. Me, more practice.” Then she turns to me. “Your Italiano? Is okay now?”
When we first FaceTimed, it was a total fail on my part. “I’m getting there,” I lie.
The truth is, my Italian is terrible. My dad had me check intermediate proficiency on the Exchange Roma application and told me that I really would get there. But so many people applied, and my chances were so slim, that becoming fluent enough would have only raised my hopes then crushed my dreams when the program chose someone else. Then when I did get accepted, I scrambled and tried to learn by streaming Italian movies and TV with English subtitles. People pick up languages like that all the time.
It didn’t really work, and my three years of high school French—Italian and French are supposedly similar—didn’t help much either. Now, I keep wondering how long before they discover I’m a fraud.
“Si. The language, she’s hard.” Sofia tilts her head, sympathy filling her eyes. “But is no problema. My parents. They make you fast learn. Do all the things. You will see. They make sure you have many, uh, honest times.” She shakes her head and laughs. “No. Mean, you will…you will no forget your time.”
“We expect your time to be unforgettable too,” my mom says.
Even with that awkwardness, we manage to talk about food and weather and whether Sofia might see the Washington Monument and the White House. Or even the president. And we tell her about life here and
how my friends want to meet her and everything.
By the time we take her bags to the car, swap them out for mine, and get me checked in for my flight, I still have nearly an hour before I need to go through security. We head to a juice bar inside the airport.
“Berry blast smoothie,” I tell the woman behind the counter.
“You too?” Sofia says. “Me too!”
The woman nods. “Sisters do that.”
We laugh.
“Cousins, then? You’ve got to be related.”
We look at each other. There is some resemblance. “I guess it’s the Italian in me,” I say.
Sofia grins. “Same! Italian in me! Selfie!” She blasts a few of us laughing then hands me her phone so I can see. I look acceptable. She still looks like a supermodel.
We pass the phone around the small table, and once my dad gives it back to Sofia, he clears his throat like he does when he’s about to tell one of his stories. Ugh.
“You know, Sofia,” he says, “we have family in Rome. My own father grew up there.”
“Yes? I want to hear!”
He launches into the full version of My Italian Family Story: The Immigration Years. It takes him five minutes to tell her how Nonno constantly argued with his father, even more so after Nonno’s mother got sick. One day, Nonno had enough. And with his mother’s blessing—go forth and please do right by our family—he left for the United States.
“He brought only his clothes, a few mementos, and forty-six dollars. He was only fifteen years old,” my dad says. “Can you imagine?”
Even I shake my head. My dad never told me that Nonno was only fifteen when he immigrated, neither speaking the language nor knowing where he’d live and what he’d do. It’s weird enough that someone is taking over my life here—my room, my parents, my friends. Then there’s the awkwardness of living with total strangers and the dread that the exchange program will discover just how little Italian I can speak. But Nonno’s story changes things.
At seventeen, I have money, a credit card, and a return ticket home, plus a phone I can use to translate anything or call anyone, anywhere in the world. Nonno’s courage has me feeling fearless.
It may be a little early, but I jump up and lead the way to security. First, I give Sofia a hug, then my mom, and my dad last. He hugs the tightest of all, his cheek lightly scratching my temple. He lets go, mostly, and slips a small package inside my backpack.
“What’s that?”
“The perfect thing for this trip. Wait until you’re in the air, though.” He gives me an even bigger hug and looks like he might cry.
I
can’t leave him like this. I resort to the one Italian saying, pretty much a family motto, I’ve known since birth—something he’s always said when I’m sad or frustrated or scared. Just before I get swallowed up by the people in line, I start it. “Chi cerce…” Whoever searches…
“Trova!” both my parents call back. Finds.
Simultaneously, Sofia chimes in, “Non trova.”
Doesn’t find?
Her eyes reduce to slits. She smirks.
And my blood runs cold.
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