Playing for Pizza

Chapter 28

In the early hours of Monday morning, Livvy hopped out of bed, turned on a light, and announced, “We’re going to Venice.”

“No,” came the response from under the pillow.

“Yes. You’ve never been. Venice is my favorite city.”

“So was Rome and Florence and Siena.”

“Get up, lover boy. I’m showing you Venice.”

“No. I’m too sore.”

“What a wimp. I’m going to Venice to find me a real man, a soccer player.”

“Let’s go back to sleep.”

“Nope. I’m leaving. I guess I’ll take the train.”

“Send me a postcard.”

She slapped him across the rump and headed for the shower. An hour later the Fiat was loaded and Rick was hauling back coffee and croissants from his neighborhood bar. Coach Russo had canceled practice until Friday. The Super Bowl, like its American imitator, took two weeks to prepare for.

To no one’s surprise, the opponent was Bergamo.

Outside the city, away from the morning traffic, Livvy began with the history of Venice, and, mercifully, hit only the high points for the first two thousand years. Rick listened with his hand on her knees as she went on about how and why the city was built on mud banks in tidal areas and floods all the time. She referred to her guidebooks occasionally, but much of it came from memory. She had been there twice in the past year, for long weekends. The first time she was with a gaggle of students, which inspired her to return a month later by herself.

“And the streets are rivers?” Rick asked, more than a little concerned about the Fiat and where it might get parked.

“Better known as canals. There are no cars, only boats.”

“Those little boats are called?”

“Gondolas.”

“Gondolas. I saw a movie once where this couple went for a ride in a gondola and the little captain—”

“Gondolier.”

“Whatever, but he kept singing real loud and they couldn’t get him to shut up. Pretty funny. It was a comedy.”

“That’s for the tourists.”

“Can’t wait.”

“Venice is the most unique city in the world, Rick. I want you to love it.”

“Oh, I’m sure I will. Wonder if they have a football team.”

“There’s no mention of one in the guidebooks.” Her phone was off and she seemed unconcerned about events back home. Rick knew her parents were furious and making threats, but there was much more to the saga than she had so far divulged. Livvy could turn it off like a switch, and when she buried herself in the history and art and culture of Italy, she was once again a student thrilled with her subject and anxious to share it.

They stopped for lunch outside the city of Padua. An hour later they found a commercial lot for tourists with cars and parked the Fiat for twenty euros a day. In Mestre, they caught a ferry, and their adventure on the water began. The ferry rocked as it was loaded, then lunged across the Venetian lagoon. Livvy clutched him along the top rail and watched with great anticipation as Venice drew closer. Soon, they were entering the Grand Canal and boats were everywhere — private water taxis, small barges laden with produce and goods, the carabiniere wagon with police insignia, a vaporetto loaded with tourists, fishing boats, other ferries, and, finally, gondolas by the dozen. The murky water lapped at the front steps of elegant palazzi built door-to-door. The campanile at Piazza San Marco loomed high in the distance.

Rick couldn’t help but notice the domes of dozens of old churches, and he had a sinking feeling he would become familiar with most of them.

They exited at a ferry stop near the Gritti Palace. On the boardwalk, she said, “This is the only bad part of Venice. We have to roll our luggage to the hotel.” And roll they did, down the crowded streets, over the narrow footbridges, through alleys cut off from the sun. She had warned him to pack light, though her bag was still twice as large as his.

The hotel was a quaint little guesthouse tucked away from the tourists. The owner, Signora Stella, was a spry woman in her seventies who worked the front desk and pretended to remember Livvy from four months back. She put them in a corner room, tight quarters but a nice view of the skyline — cathedrals all around — and also a full bath, which, as Livvy explained, was not always the case in these tiny hotels in Italy. The bed rattled as Rick stretched out, and this concerned him briefly. She was not in the mood, not with Venice lying before them and so much to see. He couldn’t even negotiate a nap.

He did manage, however, to negotiate a truce. His limit would be two cathedrals/palaces per day. After that she was on her own. They wandered over to Piazza San Marco, the first stop for all visitors, and spent the first hour at a sidewalk café sipping drinks and watching large waves of students and tourists drift around the magnificent square. It had been built four hundred years earlier, when Venice was a rich and powerful city-state, she was saying. The Doge’s Palace occupied one corner, a huge fortress that had been protecting Venice for at least seven hundred years. The church, or basilica, was vast and attracted the biggest crowds.

She left to buy tickets, and Rick called Sam. The coach was watching the tape of yesterday’s game between Bergamo and Milan, the usual Monday afternoon chore for any coach prepping for the Super Bowl.

“Where are you?” Sam demanded.

“Venice.”

“With that young girl?”

“She’s twenty-one, Coach. And, yes, she’s close by.”

“Bergamo was impressive, no fumbles, only two penalties. Won by three touchdowns. They seem much better now that the streak is off their backs.”

“And Maschi?”

“Brilliant. He knocked out their quarterback in the third quarter.”

“I’ve been knocked out before. I suspect they’ll put the two Americans on Fabrizio and pound him. Could be a long day for the boy. There goes the passing game. Maschi can shut down the run.”

“Thank God for the punting game,” Sam sneered. “You got a plan?”

“I got a plan.”

“Mind sharing it with me so I can sleep tonight?”

“No, it’s not finished yet. A couple more days in Venice and I’ll have the kinks worked out.”

“Let’s meet Thursday afternoon and work on it.”

“Sure, Coach.”

Rick and Livvy trudged through the basilica of San Marco, shoulder to shoulder with some Dutch tourists, their guide prattling on in any language requested. After an hour, Rick bolted. He drank a beer in the fading sun at a café and waited patiently for Livvy.

They strolled through central Venice and crossed the Rialto Bridge without buying anything. For the daughter of a rich doctor, she was behaving frugally. Tiny hotels, cheap meals, trains, and ferries, an apparent concern with what things cost. She insisted on paying for half of everything, or at least offering. Rick told her more than once that he was certainly not wealthy nor was he highly paid, but he refused to worry about money. And he refused to let her pay for much.

Their metal-framed bed rocked halfway across the room during a late-night session, enough noise to prompt Signora Stella to whisper something discreetly to Livvy during breakfast the next morning.

“What did she say?” Rick asked when Stella disappeared.

Livvy, suddenly blushing, leaned in and whispered, “We made too much noise last night. There were complaints.”

“What did you tell her?”

“Too bad. We can’t stop.”

“Atta girl.”

“She doesn’t think we should, but she might move us to another room, one with a heavier bed.”

“I love a challenge.”

Long boulevards do not exist in Venice. The streets are narrow, and they twist and curl with the canals and cross them with a variety of bridges. Someone once counted 400 bridges in the city, and by late Wednesday Rick was certain he had used them all.

He was parked under an umbrella at a sidewalk café, puffing languidly on a Cuban cigar and sipping Campari and ice, waiting for Livvy to polish off another cathedral, this one known as the church of San Fantin. He wasn’t tired of her, just the opposite. Her energy and curiosity inspired him to use his brain. She was a delightful companion, easy to please and eager to do whatever looked like fun. He was still waiting for a glimpse of the pampered rich kid, the self-absorbed sorority queen. Maybe it didn’t exist.

Nor was he tired of Venice. In fact, he was enchanted by the city and its endless nooks and dead ends and hidden piazzas. The seafood was incredible, and he was thoroughly enjoying this break from pasta. He’d seen enough cathedrals and palazzi and museums, but his interest in the city’s art and history had been piqued.

Rick was a football player, though, and there was one game remaining. It was a game he had to win to justify his presence, his existence, and his cost, meager as it was. Money aside, he had once been an NFL quarterback, and if he couldn’t put together an offense for one more win here in Italy, then it was time to hang up the spikes.

He had already dropped the hint that he needed to leave Thursday morning. She seemed to ignore it. Over dinner at Fiore, he said, “I need to go to Parma tomorrow. Coach Russo wants to meet in the afternoon.”

“I think I’ll stay here,” she said without hesitation. It was all planned.

“For how long?”

“A few more days. I’ll be fine.”

And he had no doubt she would be. Though they preferred to stick together, both needed their space and each was quick to disappear. Livvy could travel the world alone, much easier than he could. Nothing flustered or intimidated her. She adjusted on the fly like any seasoned traveler and was not above using her smile and beauty to get what she wanted.

“You’ll be back for the Super Bowl?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t dare miss it.”

“Smart-ass.”

They had eel, mullet, and cuttlefish, and when they were stuffed, they walked to Harry’s Bar on the Grand Canal for a nightcap. They sat huddled in a corner, watching a crowd of loud Americans and not missing home.

“When the season is over, what will you do?” she asked. She was wrapped around his right arm, and his right hand massaged her knees. They sipped slowly, as if they might be there all night.

“Not sure. What about you?” he asked.

“I need to go home, but I don’t want to.”

“I don’t need to and I don’t want to. But I’m not quite clear on what I’m supposed to do here.”

“You wanna stay?” she asked as she somehow managed to get even closer.

“With you?”

“Got anybody else in mind?”

“That’s not what I meant. Are you staying?”

“I could be talked into it.”

The heavier bed was in a larger room and solved the problem of complaints. They slept late Thursday, then said an uncomfortable good-bye. Rick waved to her as the ferry shoved off and eased through the Grand Canal.