Italian Liaisons

Carried Away As it usually did, Melina’s heartbeat sped up the closer she got to Signorina Givanni’s room. But it quickly slowed once she saw the closed door, signaling that the sexy teacher was elsewhere during the lunch break. So Melina went outside and ended up joining a group of students in a volleyball game. At one point, the ball got hurled way out of bounds, and she was the one who went chasing after it. Her efforts were rewarded by slipping on a pile of dead twigs that had yet to be removed after the previous day’s windstorm, and acquiring a nasty sliver in the side of her foot, making her sorry she wore sandals instead of sneakers. It hurt so badly she could barely even limp. Instead, she plopped herself down on the ground and tried to pull the sliver out. In Italian, she heard one of the students say that Signorina Givanni had just entered her classroom and that they’d go let her know Melina was hurt. A moment later, the teacher strode over in a matter-of-fact, purposeful manner, and someone asked if she needed help carrying her. “No,” said the teacher before she picked her up and carried her indoors with one arm under her back and the other under her knees. Melina was amazed at how swiftly and easily the petite teacher carried her. Okay, so she herself was barely five feet tall, but Signorina Givanni couldn’t have been more than a few inches taller. In slow and sometimes incorrect Italian, Melina told the teacher she was surprised she could carry her. “You don’t seem that much bigger or heavier,” she finished with. “C'è ancora una differenza significativa. Pesanti come stai?” “I weigh 110 pounds,” Melina answered. “And I weigh 130 pounds,” she replied in Italian as she grabbed a pair of tweezers from her handbag. “Wow, I didn’t know you were that heavy. You must be solid—ow!” “Stare ancora,” the teacher said. Melina did as she was told and remained as still as she could while the teacher gently pried the sliver of bark free from her foot. “Grazie!” Melina exclaimed when it was free. “Tu sei…” Melina hesitated as she tried to think of the word for fabulous. Unable to, she said it in Spanish: “…fabuloso!” Another student who also spoke English laughed and said, “Just change the b to a v.” “Oh. Favuloso,” Melina said, smiling fondly at the teacher, who smiled back in return. Then she half-limped over to the computer and couldn’t wait for the next two hours to end so she could have more one-to-one attention with the attractive teacher. The first hour passed uneventfully. She studied at the computer, stealing an occasional glance at the teacher as always. The second hour started off with a bit of excitement. When she first heard the screaming, she didn’t realize it was directed at her until she pulled off her headphones and looked behind her. One of the students in the next class was screaming at her in Italian too fast for her to comprehend. All she could tell was that it had something to do with her being on the computer—and being American. “She’s just mad because she feels tourists are getting special privileges,” Cindy said, who was also in the next class. “Just ignore her. She’s crazy anyway.” Yet Melina couldn’t have ignored her if she wanted to, not with the way she was screaming in her face. She stood up slowly, just as Signorina Givanni pushed her way through the small gathering of students. Screaming even louder, the student shoved Melina’s shoulders—but not hard enough to knock her down. Now it was the teacher’s turn to do the screaming. She amazed Melina a second time with her strength, pushing the student so hard that she practically flew halfway across the room before hitting the ground with a hard thud. And this girl was much bigger than the now furious teacher. A few of the students gasped in shock, and the fallen student gazed up at Signorina Givanni with a mix of hatred and surprise. Obviously, she hadn’t expected to be sent flying halfway across the room. Signorina Givanni screamed for the girl to get out and pointed toward the door. The student slowly pulled herself up and said something slow and threatening-sounding to the teacher, then grabbed her backpack and left. Signorina Givanni turned to her and softly asked, “Tu bene?” Melina nodded. The teacher ordered the students to take a seat, and then Melina resumed her studies—after being rescued twice by the teacher she had a crush on. An hour later, the teacher tutored her throughout the afternoon break. They mostly stuck to business, but every now and then, they would veer off the subject of language learning, driven by their curiosity about one another. When asked in Italian why she came to Italy and if she was going to stay, she slowly explained that she had spent years saving money and decided to join her friends on the trip, who had also been saving and planning a trip to Italy. “A part of me would like to stay, yes, and I would—for the right reason. But my visa’s going to expire soon. I would need a job in order to apply for citizenship and a work visa for the job. I’m just glad I got to visit in the first place. I never expected to, but life isn’t usually what we plan it, you know?” The teacher shook her head. At first, Melina wasn’t sure if she understood her, but then she saw that she simply disagreed. “You think it is?” “Well, for the most part, yes. I pretty much decided what I wanted to do in life, and I did it. It wasn’t always easy, but it was usually what I planned and expected.” “Wow, you’re lucky. Although… not all surprises in life are bad ones.” Like you, she added to herself.