12. Dinner in Rome
After slipping behind the backs of the watchful boy-guards we rambled aimlessly from Piazza to Piazza until the faint bleating of an Italian love song wrapped itself around our weary legs and gently guided us to its source at an outside cafe. There, a fat bellied accordion player, accompanied by a lanky violinist, sat singing to each other oblivious to the hubbub of the diners around them.
A jolly waiter with a handlebar mustache nodded for us to join the other diners. We slipped into rickety folding chairs at the blue table cloth section of a long picnic table. A small green cloth indicated the table boarders for the couple on our right. Next to theirs spread our blue cloth and to our left, crisp white linen, a silver candle stick, and crystal wine glasses hinted that a prestigious party was expected. Before we placed our dinner order, a bewildered waiter bent low and began to set a steamy plat of pasta in front of us.
"No, we agreed on pizza tonight," said R to the waiter who now recognized that he was serving the wrong patrons.
He mumbled apologies and woefully hobbled away looking confused. He stood motionless for a moment, holding the plate of pasta, then, with a flare of certainty, he stood straight, looked down his nose and strode to a couple dining in the corner. His upper body gave a whirl as he lavishly bowed from the waist to present the pasta plate. The couple looked up astonished. From this distance, I could see them shaking their head "no" sending the Woeful Waiter back into the maze of diners where he again slouched motionless looking for his misplaced pasta eaters.
Our order was taken, the pizza made, served and I just opened my mouth to savor a big hunk when I saw The Woeful Waiter still looking bewildered before striding confidently from one table to another. I began to feel sorry for him, that is, until my teeth clamped down on the pizza crust, and I remembered that we all have our problems. The pizza crust was so thin that when I bit down, it shattered, splintering like a dropped Christmas bulb while the stringy cheese-topping webbed itself in and out of my fingers before it draped into a garland of crusty splinters leading to my mouth; then my nose, my ears and into my hair.
I looked to R for help. He too was having problems. But not with the pizza, which he had swallowed whole, but with the spilling wine decanter. It seems that the restaurant had shortened the front legs of the picnic table so that it slanted toward the street showing off the dinner plates but unfortunately also tipping the wine and rolling meat balls onto the shoes of passerbys.
As I waited patiently for R, who was devising a wine level out of forks, I looked across the street. The buildings were bathed in the yellow light of an old fashioned street lamp. A beautiful woman, opened double glass doors and stepped out onto an upstairs balcony. She leaned over the wrought iron rail listening to the soulful Italian love ballads coming from our musicians and remembered her soldier who had promised to return. An Italian Opera played, not with actors and cardboard sets but real people on a real stage.
"Ouch, my hair!" The wine leveled, R began to pick cheese from out of my hair just as our prestigious co-diners entered to take their places. Directly on my left side sat a frail, gaunt young man. On his left, he seated his plainly dressed fiancee. They couldn't keep from petting, kissing and cooing at one another despite the glares shooting from across the table from fattest, scowlingest pair of mothers I had ever seen. I looked away quickly as four eyes glowered diagonally in my direction. But then a commotion arose from the Mothers' side of the picnic table. There to my aghast was The Woeful Waiter bowing piously before he presented the Mothers with his plate of now cold, congealed pasta. They waved him away with a flutter of a pudgy hand and watched as he paused thoughtfully before striking off in a new direction
My eyes twinkled with amusement--or red wine--when the corpulent Mothers caught my stare. This time I couldn't look away, the whole thing was too funny. I held my breath. Our eyes locked and tangoed together across the floor to Woeful Waiter, the oblivious musicians, the entwined young lovers and then back to each other. Watching my reaction, the snarling Mothers began to smile. That made me laugh, making them roar, making me shriek, making them throw their heads back so far that they tipped over their rickety folding chairs and landed flat on their backs. They laid there, with the folds of their derrieres still smothering the chair seat. Their feet kicking wildly in the air, they howled until they frothed at the mouth and tears flooded down into the street.
"Let's get out of here", whispered R picking the last of the cheese from around my ears. We crept away from our blue table cloth and out into the shadows of the evening.
"Give me the map." commanded R, still whispering.
"The map? You had it last. I don't have the map."
"I put it under the table, by our feet. Didn't you bring it with us? he asked.
"No, I thought you did."
"I thought you did."
R started pulling his hair, lamenting in a loud whisper, "Not again, please Lord, not another day in Rome without a map. No more purgatory." Suddenly he looked up, "I'll go back for it. That's what I'll do."
We snuck quietly through the shadows back to the Lunatic Cafe. The oblivious musicians continued to sing their hearts out while the waiters, unable to upright the still howling Mothers, began to contrive a block and tackle. And there, under the table, next to the cooing couple, fluttered our map.
R gave me a quick kiss, said, "I'm going in." and left me huddled in the shadows.
As he neared the scene, he dropped to his hands and knees, and as quick as a little mouse, he scuttled under the picnic table, just missing the cooing couple's entwined legs. He picked up the map, put it between his teeth, Jim Bowie style, and was still on his hands and knees emerging from beneath the table when I saw the Woeful Waiter bend pompously from the waist offering R a heaping plate of pasta.
So Alice, if you think Wonderland hosts Mad tea parties, then you haven't tried anything until you've had dinner in Rome.