How Often Do The Buses Run?

I barley know her, but she bought the room. I sit on the balcony sipping coffee and smoking a cigarette, watching her. Dawn, bright but devoid of heat, presses against the tops of my thighs. She rolls over in bed, twisting the sheets, and exhales in a half snore. It’s funny to see her like this—tired, vulnerable, not at all foreign. I take a drag thinking that when Anna wakes up she will be the same as she was last night. She’ll walk to the bathroom, hips swaying, lean back muscles protruding, with the slender strength of piano wire. She’ll speak in rapid Italian, stop, repeat it slowly and the laugh when I still don’t get it.

Laughter is universal. I’ve known her less than twenty-four hours and I’ll take genuine laughter over broken English any day. I make video clips inside my head and call them memories. I’ll edit later—idealize them, no doubt—in an attempt to preserve the pleasant clarity of the original, knowing that it’s no use since they’ll all go out of focus. Memories are just the scars left by moments that you couldn’t hold on to. That would sound nice in Italian, but I don’t speak the language.

The bus stop kiosk is across the street in front of Buvette Vins Café. Black, wrought-iron tables with matching chairs are set up outside the café. Two older Italian men raise their voices and point at an unfolded newspaper. A middle-aged man in a blue Versace suit looks down at his wristwatch then up at the bus kiosk sign. He taps his foot and shakes his head. Behind him two American tourists stand round-shouldered, fanning themselves with maps. They’re married with matching suitcases.

“Do you think we’ll get it all in today, Jim?” the wife says.
“Maybe,” Jim says, “depends if this damn bus ever comes.”
“And you’re sure you don’t want to see anything we miss today, tomorrow?”
“Rita, I told you there’s football on all tomorrow at that Irish pub—we get all the sightseeing we can in today and that’s the end of it.”
“But what about the Pantheon?” she says. “We’ll never get that in today.”
“Order it on paper-view tonight at the hotel,” he says. “Did you see those little historical documentaries you can order?”

Rita folds her arms and looks down the line. The well-dressed man answers his cell phone and speaks with the same quick, smooth pronunciation as Anna. He glances back up at the bus kiosk and curses then hangs up and slips the phone into his left breast pocket. Jim goes to hold his wife’s hand, but she scoots away and shakes her head. He shrugs in annoyance, takes up his suitcase and shuffles into the café.

Anna suddenly hugs me from behind, her forearms wrapped around my neck. She’s wearing my undershirt and I can feel the material coupled with the soft lumps of her breasts against my bare back.

“Buongiorno,” she whispers, then grabs my hands, lifts it and takes a drag off my cigarette.
“Did you have a good time?” she says.
“Incredible,” I say. Her nose wrinkles and she titles her head.
“Sorry,” I say. “I mean, yes, I had a very good time—the best time.”
She smiles and runs her hand through my hair.
“Do you know where your place is?” she says. “Are you lost?”
“Yes, a little, but thank God,” I say. “Thank God I’m lost.”

Across the street Jim comes out of the café holding a beer. I tell Anna to watch so she comes around and sits on my lap. The well-dressed man answers his cell phone again and begins talking. I ask Anna what the problem is.

“Businessman,” she says, “big hurry.”
Rita fans her face with a map, muttering under her breath. Jim gulps down the rest of his beer and says, “Fine, screw it. If you’re going to be like this I’ll be at the bar.”

“And what’s wrong with them?” Anna says.
“They’re unhappy.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t think they do either.”

Rita inches up to the businessman, head down, studying an Italian phrasebook.
“Ogni quanti minuti corre l’autobus?” she says in a stilted accent.
The businessman shrugs and then reaches into his pocket for cigarettes. I ask Anna what the wife said.

“How often do the buses run?” Anna says.

Too often, I think. If I were down there I’d tell them to slow down. I’d tell them that the buses run more often than you realize. But I don’t know Italian and I could never communicate with Jim and Rita. I don’t speak their language.