Waiting to Be Heard: A Memoir Read Online Free PDF Page B

didn’t yet know if I’d regret it. (Nor could I anticipate that my private, uncertain experiment would become my public undoing.) “I’m sorry,” he said, “but you have to go now. My sister will be home soon. I’ll walk you to the University for Foreigners. You can find your way from there.”
    We didn’t talk as we walked past the park. When we reached the university, he kissed me good-bye on both cheeks. The standard Italian hello and good-bye among casual friends was as unromantic as a handshake would have been in America. “We should do that again sometime,” he said. I nodded, perplexed by the disparate emotions bouncing around in my head.
    I walked back to the villa alone, feeling both exhilarated and defeated.
    The next morning, I told my roommates I’d had sex with Mirko. “I feel conflicted,” I said. “It was fun, but it was weird to feel so disconnected from each other. Is that just me?”
    Laura absolved me. “You’re young and free-spirited. Don’t worry about it.”
    That made me feel a little better.
    A few days later, I stopped by the café, and Mirko invited me to his place again. I shoved my ambivalence aside and agreed. As we walked from the café, he smiled at me and asked me how school was going. “Fine,” I said. “How’s work?”
    “Pretty slow, now that the tourist season is over.”
    We didn’t hold hands.
    I followed Mirko down the gravel drive and into his house. I wanted to turn around and run, but somehow I couldn’t. I found myself inside his bedroom. Mirko playfully pushed me on to his queen-size bed, but when he put his hand down my jeans I balked. “I have to go,” I said. I didn’t say why. I just threw on my shirt and left, walking alone up the road, past the park, past the University for Foreigners, home. I didn’t feel free or sophisticated. I felt a twinge of regret.
    I was too ashamed and embarrassed to go back to the café after that. Was there something wrong with me? Or was it with him? Either way, I couldn’t bear to run into him again.
    I was alone with Meredith when I told her about fleeing from Mirko.
    “I feel like an idiot.”
    “Amanda,” she said, consolingly, “maybe uninvolved sex just isn’t for you.”
    M onths later Meredith’s friends, our roommates, and especially the prosecutor would say that Meredith’s and my relationship had soured—that we had fought over men, my manners, money. This wasn’t true. We never argued about anything. We were just getting to know each other, and I thought we’d developed a comfortable familiarity in a short time—a process that probably moved faster because everything around us was new and unfamiliar. We shared a house, meals, a bathroom. I treated Meredith as my confidante. Meredith treated me with respect and a sense of humor.
    The only awkward interaction we had was when Meredith gently explained the limitations of Italian plumbing.
    Her face a little strained with embarrassment, she approached me in my room and said, “Amanda, I’m sorry to bring this up with you. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but with our toilets, you really need to use the brush every time.”
    I was mortified. I knew that Meredith was uncomfortable saying it. I would have been, too. I said, “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I will totally check and make sure I leave it clean.”
    We laughed a little nervously. We didn’t want to hurt each other’s feelings.
    F or two weeks in mid-October, tents and tables filled all the squares around Corso Vannucci for the annual Eurochocolate festival. The smell of chocolate around town was inescapable. Laura told me about the chocolate sculpture carving. It was done in the early mornings, so the next day, I went to Piazza IV Novembre to watch. The artists started with a refrigerator-size block of chocolate. As the chiseled pieces flew, assistants gathered chips and shavings into small plastic bags and threw them to the rowdy crowd. When a chunk of chocolate with the heft of an