I wandered along the path way, moving off of the trail if I saw something that caught my fancy. I was in no hurry to get to Lucia. When she'd told me to meet her here in ten minutes I had said go away. I'd been up late working on my thesis statement for my creative writing class. I'd just barely gone to sleep when she called.
It was dark out and there was a light mist on the ground. It smelled like fresh rain, which I loved. Carnival music was stuck in my head from when Allen took me outside to talk to him during first period. Heaven knows why there was a carnival so close to school, but there was.
When I found Lucia she was sitting in a hammock suspended between two trees. Her blonde hair was falling onto her back like a waterfall. Her bare shoulder had freckles dotting them. She stood.
"Canarra. I'm glad you chose to come."
"Lucia... What do you want?"
"OH my gosh, Narra. Don't be such a frickin' downer all the time. How's school? Do you have a boyfriend?"
Ignoring her, i took my iPod out of my gray sweater.
"No need for that, Chica. You know, I've been taking Spanish over at Southern Olympia. Hola. Me llama Lucia. Me gusta Luna y casso. Y tu?"
I understood nothing she said. I spoke English, French, and Latin. All were romantic languages in my eyes. But Spanish? No. "what is it, Lucia?" I groaned.
"Well, since you're so concerned, I'll tell you. You remember last summer on our trip to Italy? Yes, of course you do. You met that boy there! But no time to tease you now. You know how we went into that curio shop and the attendant gave me his card? I emailed him when we got home and he just replied." she pulled out her smart phone. "This is what it says; 'Dear Lucia. I'm thrilled you took the time to thank me. It fills me with an amazing amount of joy. I have been pondering as I often do and I was stricken with an idea! I would need you and your dear friend, Canarra to come out to Italy. I would like to pay for you two to go to the elite and scholarly board school on the shore, called (ADD ITALIAN NAME HERE!!!). It has been ranked at number 23 in the list of the schools in all of the world that produces the most knowledgeable students. It would be an experiment to see how two children of Italian descent who have grown up in America would do in their place of heritage. If you felt at all uncomfortable at any time during your stay there, my family has a home within 100 kilometers and would be ready to provide you with anything you need. Please consider my offer and respond soon with your news.' Can you even believe that? That would be like so amazing If we got to go to italy! You soo have to ask your mom! It would be way fun."
I put my iPod away and stared at her. Was she crazy? Some weirdo she met once emails her all of the sudden and boom Lucia's going to go stay with him?!? She couldn't do that! "No way, Lucia. That would be a totally bad idea. Like, way bad. No."
She stood up, her sleeveless black tie dress seemed a bit too much for the occasion. "Canarra, it's my turn to do something for a change. You aren't my momma. She's dead." It was true. Lucia's parents were both dead. "And I already asked Isobella. She said she knew that guys wife back from when she lived in Italy. We are going."
"No. We aren't. I'm going home and going to sleep. Why couldn't you have talked to me at home, anyways? It's sorta cold out here. Bye." I turned and walked away.
Lucia made a snarling noise and I heard her sit down on the hammock. I heard her running to catch up with me. "Narra. Please!"
"No."
____________________
"I think you girls would enjoy it," Mom said, smiling.
"You really would. If Isobella says she knows him, which she does, then I'm al for it." Dad smiled too.
"What kind of sick, twisted game is this?" I asked, raising my voice.
Mom smiled at me, as if her upturned lips could change the course of events that had began at the beginning of the universe, causing me to be born to her and my father. Well, it could not. I rolled my eyes at the sick excuse for a care giver. My lip began to quiver, until it found its place in the foulest of sneers. I shook my head in disgust.
From across the room Lucia howled with silent laughter, silent laughter so full of cruelty that she practically shook with the waves of spite that flowed straight from her heart. Yes, yes, this would call for revenge for the highest perplexity. I would ponder her punishment for as long as it took me to realize the universe around me, as long as it took to know the world. Oh wait! I already completely understood the galaxy in which the galaxy in which the galaxy I lived in was. I knew the perfect rouse to get her on her feet. I would receive my rue. my well deserved rue.
____________________
In my room as I sat on my bed, I thought about my life. My friends. My school. My past. My future. I was going to leave my horrid town in Wisconsin and be relocated to another, more horrid town... In Italy, the mafia head quarters! I would most definitely be kidnapped because I will steal the heart of a young mafia boss's son. We will be together for just one night entirely of tragic love, and the next day the scandal will be out because he brother heard him singing love songs to me in Italian. He will then tell his father, who will send his son off to the east coast of some obscure country where he will be consumed with his work so as to forget his lover. So consumed that he would be working in his awfully sophisticated work that he will be killed. And his father will blame it on me, and he will bring me to his cushy mansion on the coast and plan on killing me, until he realizes it was he who killed his son and in his grief, he will shoot himself. And I will go on to have many more men in my life, and then on my deathbed in 80 years, I will think to myself
Canarra, you've lived a good life, you gorgeous excuse for a woman.
And then I will remember my time involved with the mafia and think
But, oh, you caused such grief in the lives of those mafia men. I loved him. He was mine...
And I will stand up and run out of my hospital room and fly to Italy where I first met him and I will jump off of a cliff.
I admit, that doesn't sound like a bad way to live, but still. I can meet a mafia man in France. Or New York. Yes, New York. Not Italy.
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