First Position Read Online Free PDF Page A

streets!”
    I silently let myself out of the room and check the hallway.
    All clear.
    I creep carefully along and scurry down the stairs, past the empty
common area and deserted lobby. The front door makes a beeping noise
as I let myself out, and for a moment, I freeze in the doorway,
expecting alarms to sound, and Mademoiselle to pounce, and for me to
be shipped off home in disgrace. But there’s nothing but the
whir of the vending machine and a flicker from the broken fluorescent
light overhead, so I close the door behind me with a quiet click.
    Outside, the Rome night is warm, with the faint sounds of traffic and
late-night partiers. A group of young Italians pass me on the street,
dressed up and chatting excitedly in words I don’t understand.
I fall in behind them, for a moment feeling like another person
entirely. I don’t know if I’m being crazy, or braver than
ever before. Perhaps they’re the same thing in the end.
    I gather all of my courage and set out on the dark, foreign streets.
Towards the party. Towards Raphael.

Seven.
     
     
    I walk briskly along the main streets, and soon, I’m at the
edge of the neighborhood marked on the flyer. My heart is still
pounding so fast I think it might burst out of my chest, but the
thrill is from anticipation now, not fear.
    Back home in New York, I was always nervous on the streets at night:
there was something cold and dangerous about the city blocks; but
Rome at night is a warm, bright comfort. Golden streetlights
illuminate the cobbled sidewalks, casting shadows on the tiny
courtyards and ancient statues, and every square I pass is noisy with
laughter and voices, people clustered outside the sidewalk cafes,
drinking wine and smoking cigarettes with stylish nonchalance. The
breeze is crisp with the coming fall, but the air is still warm with
the memory of the day’s sun, whispering around my bare legs and
sending shivers down my spine.
    And then I hear it. Music, just like the other day. The swell of
strings, the low thunder of bass. Surging. Infectious.
    Calling to me.
    I cross the street and head deeper into the winding alleyways that
crisscross from the main boulevards. Even in the dark, I can see that
this is a hip, young neighborhood. The store windows are all full of
cute vintage clothing, and the bars are packed with scruffy, hot
Italian people in their late teens and twenties. There’s an
energy here, full of life and vivid promise, and it drives me on,
towards the music, into the unknown.
    I can hear the party clearly now, voices and laughter in the dark
night. I duck under a curved archway, and suddenly find myself in the
middle of a large courtyard nestled between apartment buildings,
bright with light and activity.
    It’s so beautiful, I have to take a breath and look around,
greedily drinking in the scene. Tiny lanterns and twinkling lights
are strung up all around the space: twining through fire escapes and
along the electricity wires overhead, illuminating the old shutters
on the buildings and the flowers spilling off every window ledge.
People are dancing, chatting, sipping wine and greeting each other
happily; a pulsating mass of people, their voices echoing out into
the night.
    I let the energy wash over me, but now that I’ve arrived, my
self-consciousness flickers back to life.
    What am I supposed to do now? I don’t know a single person
here.
    More people arrive behind me, and the music rises another level, so I
cautiously edge into the crowd. A whole mix of accents surrounds me:
Italian, what sounds like French, Spanish, even some English too.
It’s a young crowd, impossibly gorgeous, and stylish in that
effortless European way. The girls all wear lipstick, their hair long
and glossy, or cropped, gamine-style. They wear teetering heels with
flowing dresses, or skintight jeans and casual shirts—whatever
it is, they look like they all just strolled in from a Vogue shoot.
    I tug on the hem of my denim skirt, feeling way underdressed, and