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  Anyway, after our arrival, we hit the showers. As I hosed off in the salt water [the only bonus, my hair looked like I’d used sea spray] I noticed a couple of bumps on my legs. However, I was distracted when I realized that the shower drain didn’t perform this one crucial job and I’d caused a great flood. I used the bathmat to sop up what I could before meeting Joanna downstairs.

  The hotel’s website boasted striped umbrellas dotting a white sand beach, buffeted by a blue-green sea, which looked exactly like I’d imagine the South of France. I’m now convinced the photo was from the South of France, because our beach was nothing but gray sand, covered in empty Fanta bottles and Croatian medical waste, overrun by packs of stray dogs.

  [In retrospect, I wish I’d taken photographs but I didn’t realize that I might eventually need them for Plaintiff’s Exhibit A.]

  The hotel’s owner knew I was an author, so he gave me a paperback about this place. Said book had a sandcastle on the front, making the town of Torre Mileto look twee and rustic. I thought this was a sweet gesture and I pledged to improve my attitude. More chill, less pill.

  Later, I realized the shot wasn’t a sandcastle at all – it was an old, broken paddleboat. So, we flew halfway around the world to stay somewhere that’s filthy to the extent they were obligated to place garbage on the promotional material. Swimming was out, largely because none of us wanted Hep C. I never laid so much as a toe on the beach.

  To keep from turning into a complete Ugly American, I began expressing my frustration by emitting heavy sighs, instead of, you know, cutting a motherfucker.

  Sigh.

  I tried to temper my disappointment over dinner. The wine helped. After we ate, we returned upstairs to barter with one another – I traded one of my non-blood-stained pillows to Joanna for an extra lamp and Julia swapped Alyson an adapter in exchange for actual shampoo instead of the dishwashing liquid packets placed in our showers.

  I wanted to cry as I prepared for bed in my dismal room, noting that the bathroom in the Baptist summer camp I attended in junior high was far more opulent than this. The cracked white walls were gray with age and the drain was clearly just a suggestion, like one of those black holes Wile E. Coyote would paint on a wall to trick the Road Runner. The yellowed shower curtain clung tenuously to the rail on its three yet-untorn loops of plastic. Everything was covered with a fine sheen of rust or mildew. I imagine no one wanted to scrub the moldy parts of the tile too hard, as this was likely load-bearing penicillin.

  Still, I pledged wake up less Ugly American and more Citizen of the World, because when would I ever be in Italy with friends again? After washing my face in salty water, I conducted my first major transaction in the bathroom since arriving in Italy.

  That’s when I discovered that the toilet had stopped flushing.

  I put on a bra and marched downstairs, because, non-functional phone.

  In English and panicked Italian, I explained how the flush button on the wall wasn’t working. Donatella’s friend, the owner, offered me the Shrug, then told me I was probably trying to flush wrong.

  Sigh.

  I pleaded for his help, explaining again that the issue was the button itself and not my ability to apply pressure to it. Reluctantly, he followed me upstairs.

  For modesty’s sake, I’d closed the lid of the odd, square, taupe-colored toilet that had once been white, back during the promise of the Kennedy administration. And even though the non-functional flusher had nothing to do with my deposit, the owner insisted on looking anyway, prompting me to shriek, “No! No! It’s the button, not the bowl!”

  Then, because our waiter from dinner heard me, he came upstairs. He, too, decided to peek, despite my protests. That made for awkward meal service for the rest of the trip.

  The men took turns using closed fists to punch the small metal disc on the wall, wailing on it as though they were our van driver’s enforcers, trying to collect on a welched bet. After twenty-five wall-rattling blows apiece, the toilet finally, mercifully flushed.

  “See?” the owner said, like somehow I was the problem. “Is fine.”

  We had to go through this exercise every time I wanted the toilet to flush, which is why I started to pee in the bidet.

  I did not feel like a Citizen of the World.

  At this point, I was ready to go home. I needed something to feel familiar or comforting. All I wanted was to watch The League, but Netflix didn’t work in Italy. Or at least it hadn’t worked while I was on Wi-Fi in Rome. Desperate, I tried anyway. Success! I found a solid signal on my iPad!

  I laughed at how I had gamed the system. See, I didn’t want to spend three bucks per episode on iTunes like a sucker when I knew I could watch a stream for free. Genius!

  The next morning, I received a text from AT&T about being two hundred and ten dollars over the international data plan I’d purchased. I spoke to a customer service rep who told me that just because I could watch Netflix in Italy didn’t mean I should.

  Sigh.

  Before breakfast, Joanna and I took a walk to see if the surroundings were less grim as we got farther away from the gas station, I mean, hotel. We discovered the only points of interest were yet another pack of stray dogs, [they do become significant later – put a pin in that] a camp of Romany caravans that had popped up across the street in the night, and a vacant lot where the world’s biggest butternut squash was growing, amid rotting figs and a vibrant yellow-jacket population. Every single guest at breakfast mentioned the squash, largely because it had been the high point of the tour thus far. I wish I were kidding.

  That’s when I had my first epiphany. Here’s the thing about Americans – we seek out exotic destinations. In our heads, we’re all secretly Anthony Bourdain. As a people, there’s almost no place on earth we won’t visit. That our group was only the second set of Americans to ever set foot in this town told me that we weren’t anywhere any American would ever be dumb enough to go.

  When I looked again at the book about Torre Mileto, I learned that this area is also considered un paradisio per i serpenti, which directly translates to “a paradise for snakes,” particularly asps.

  So, snakes and garbage in the marketing material. Noted.

  After breakfast, we gathered for our first excursion. We didn’t want to drag our electronics around, so we asked Donatella where we could store our valuables. Like many European hotels, we were required to leave our keys on the counter where anyone, including the new across-the-street-Romany neighbors, could retrieve them. Surely there was some system in place to keep guests’ laptops or passports secure.

  Shrug.

  With a Best Buy full of products in our bags and everything else of value tucked in our money belts, we headed off to the museum, five minutes away in the picturesque village where Donatella grew up.

  We boarded the new and slightly improved rape van driven by another of Donatella’s friends, an Italian version of Matthew Modine. Five minutes later, plus forty, we arrived.

  The museum was owned by yet another friend of Donatella’s. The place wasn’t a “museum” so much as a random collection of items that her pal found in a flea market and put on display. You know, I go to flea markets all the time to buy old shit – apparently, I’m a curator, too.

  Some exhibits featured old female department store mannequins with their thick ‘60s eyeliner and heavy lashes, only they were dressed in male soldiers’ uniforms. The whole thing had a distinctively RuPaul’s Drag Race feel to it.

  I loved that part.

  Donatella’s docent friend – who, credit due, was so enthusiastic – would give lengthy, ostensibly educational Italian explanations about what we were seeing. Donatella would extrapolate these great swaths of information into a sentence, such as, “They were farmers.”

  I did not love that part.

  The folks in Team Couple were hungover, so they were quiet at the museum, save for their leader, who was named Manny. He didn’t speak Italian. Instead, he labored under the assumption t
hat if he spoke rudimentary Spanish loudly enough, the Italians would understand. [I bet the Germans have a snarky word for this, like shoutenassenholen.] Also, the faux-seum was the greatest thing he’d ever seen, which leads me to believe that Manny’s hometown of Racine leaves much to be desired.

  Next up, a visit to Donatella’s family’s chapel. I envisioned something windswept and romantic, a place where George Clooney might tie the knot. Instead, it was a single, windowless twelve by twelve room that smelled like centuries of fungus and toadstools, and contained a large statue of what I believed to be Jesus wearing gardening gloves.

  I began to suspect we were there seeing the Blessed Father of Beets and String Beans not to connect with history, but because this was a free activity.

  I was sensing a theme.

  After all this excitement, which was almost too much for Manny, Donatella’s aunt magnanimously decided to open her store especially for us. This was noteworthy because literally every single shop in the village was closed due to the Sabbath. We couldn’t even buy water.

  Her aunt’s shop? She sold shoes – slightly used shoes.

  I had my second epiphany then – I realized we weren’t in this town because it was beautiful or culturally significant, at least in any appreciable way. I realized that we were here because my teacher was looking for us to fund her trip back to see her friends and family.

  Long con.

  Long fucking con.

  Back at the hotel for lunch, we watched Team Couple chug as much free wine as possible. None of us partook because the rape van didn’t have a bathroom.

  Conversation was impossible as Manny dominated the discussion. Neither Joanna, Alyson, nor I were Catholic, so we didn’t know what a pilgrimage site was and Donatella didn’t care to explain. Thankfully, Manny was there to share his profound thoughts and feelings on the concept of pilgrimage. We learned he was partial to cranberries, but didn’t care for stuffing. His favorite part was the football afterward.

  We boarded the van to get to the site. An hour into what should have been a forty-five-minute ride, I noticed that Julia’s legs were dotted with the same kind of bites I had. The five of us did side-by-side comparisons. We were all chewed up, every one of us. That’s when we discovered that the back of the van was completely infested with fleas. I guess you can’t live around that many stray dogs without consequences.

  Donatella’s response?

  The Shrug.

  Our infestation problems were forgotten when we noticed how high up in the mountains we’d traveled. Plus, we were driving way too fast in a top-heavy rape van on terrifying two-lane switchbacks. One would imagine that Italian Matthew Modine might want to stop texting and pay attention, or at the very least not pass other cars on blind turns while doing so, but one would be wrong.

  They say travel broadens you and teaches you about yourself. What I learned about myself is that I’m afraid of heights. When I relayed this story to a friend, she corrected me, saying what I was afraid of was toppling over the minuscule guardrail and bouncing four thousand meters down to my death.

  Because we were in the wilds of the Italian mountains, no one bothers with fences so we also experienced the thrill of stopping short to avoid hitting free-range ponies.

  The only thing that kept me from losing it was imagining that maybe if I died a spectacular death on an Italian mountainside, my passing would be mentioned on the news and I’d somehow become a cult favorite for dying too soon, too young, with too much unfulfilled promise, thus posthumously making my dream come true of hitting number one on the New York Times bestseller list.

  But I probably wouldn’t. I would likely just be dead and all my few mourners would discuss is how one person could have so damn many flea bites.

  Two hours later, we arrived at the pilgrimage site. Was it a carnival? Was it a crematorium? We still didn’t know. Italian Matthew Modine launched into a lengthy explanation. As he spoke, I swore I smelled wine on his breath. Figured I was imagining, as what kind of professional would have drinks before transporting thirteen souls through harrowing mountain paths?

  Donatella summed up his explanation as, “It’s a pilgrimage site.”

  Fortunately, we had Manny there to explain the concept to us in Shoutenassenholen. Also, because Team Couple was too busy swilling wine at lunch, we hadn’t left on time. We arrived too late to visit the Lombardian Gate, which is the one reason we’d come.

  Shrug. Sigh.

  We told Donatella that the ride terrified us and asked if there was an alternate way home, as Joanna had already consulted and found a solution on Google maps.

  Donatella said that, yes, the highway route was shorter, but wasn’t as scenic. This is what she did – took whatever problem we pointed out and tried to spin it as a selling point, saying how Americans had never traveled her route. To me, that no American had this experience before wasn’t so much a benefit as it was a warning.

  I assumed I was the only person who was upset because... I’m not low maintenance. I’m often the center of my own small universe. And I have a PhD in complaining. (Hell, I tune me out me most of the time.) That’s why I figured my opinion was skewed.

  To this point, though, we’d not downloaded with each other. Donatella’s husband kept hovering around us whenever it looked like we might be bitching, so we didn’t have a chance to talk until then.

  Consensus?

  Not only was this trip miserable and uncomfortable and in no way as advertised, but also dangerous and terrifying. We’d each privately thought ourselves jerks for being unhappy, but it wasn’t until we came together that we realized this shit wasn’t right, regardless of how much everything delighted Manny. [I believe my exact words were, “Manny would fuck a ham sandwich and call it a Merry Christmas,” so his opinion was to be discounted.]

  Now, it’d be one thing if we were friends with Donatella and all came to her hometown to hang out with all her people. But to have paid a whole bunch of money and been sold a bill of goods?

  Long con.

  On the three-hour-plus trip home – in the dark, in the rain, on mountain roads also inhabited by free-range cattle, we learned that our expedition to the organic farmhouse had been cancelled, as had our boat trip around the Adriatic. All the other excursions involved more treks through the mountains with a driver I later did witness drinking while in our employ. When Joanna suggested that consuming vino on the job was cultural, I asked her how that worked out for Princess Diana.

  [I know. Still too soon. Doesn’t invalidate my point.]

  Essentially, we’d be stuck on Syphilis Beach for the next three days without a single damn thing to do that wasn’t terrifying or dangerous. Donatella had proven to be a fraud, as everything thus far had been grossly exaggerated at best or a lie. Stood to reason that nothing would improve.

  With Donatella’s husband desperately trying to eavesdrop, we whispered about a possible mutiny, while furiously scratching our flea bites.

  Our decision to abandon the tour wasn’t set until we returned to the hotel. We were promised a night of entertainment, which turned out to be thirty local eight-year-olds dancing the Tarantella for three hours.

  I’m not sure if you buy into the whole afterlife business. I do. I believe our actions here on earth translate to what happens to us post-mortem. I believe in Heaven, which I imagine looks different from person to person. Like, for Joanna? No dogs. For me? All the dogs! Now, if there’s a Hell – and my actions are predicated in anticipation of this – my version, my eternal punishment includes thirty local eight-year-olds dancing the Tarantella.

  Stick a fork in us, we were done.

  We didn’t formally decide to bail until after our “wine and Spumante tasting” which included no actual tastes of wine or Spumante. Instead, we received a sales pitch from one of Donatella’s husband’s buddies in the basement of a storage facility in the middle of some random city.

  We did get to see the wine processing plant, though, upon Manny’s request. Th
at was scenic, if you like industrial parks and mounds of rotting produce. My favorite part was afterward when Italian Matthew Modine kept swerving off the road because he’d been drinking at lunch.

  As we parsed out every broken promise and unmet expectation with Donatella, she listened intently, nodding as Julia laid out our case. We decided to leave the tour and head back to Rome five days early because at least we’d have something to do there that didn’t involve flea-ridden rape vans, Manny, or a swift and imminent death.

  At the end of our conversation, Donatella agreed it was best for us to go since we were unhappy. She smiled kindly and then told us there were no refunds. Although she was sorry, we wouldn’t see a penny of the ten thousand dollars’ worth of food, lodging, and tours still due to us collectively.

  Then she shrugged.

  There’s no happy ending here. Yes, we took off for Rome, but not before encountering more stray dogs in the train station. Our first Airbnb apartment was so filthy and roach-filled that we abandoned it, so there’s a whole second and third part of this story, too.

  By the time we landed somewhere safe and decent, we were sick of Italy and had exhausted all our spending money in providing our own room and board for a second and then third time. At that point, we legitimately could have sent one of those, “Help me, I’m broke in Europe!” emails.

  The lesson here is twofold: first, the twelve dollar Italian lesson is a lie, and, second, a Rosetta Stone disc will never give you fleas.

  Four

  Love Is

  “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

  - George Santayana

  “This is a nightmare.”

  Those words raced through my head as Fletch and I stood face to face, holding hands in front of the minister on that balmy Las Vegas day in September, 2002.

  “My worst nightmare.”

  No, I wasn’t having cold feet, balking at the idea of coupling up legally and permanently. We’d known we should be together since shortly after we’d met eight years earlier. Yet ours was not a love at first sight scenario. In my opinion, this phenomenon is a myth. Love at first sight is only a thing regarding dogs or designer purses.