Bus Stop

...“Please share my umbrella.”

The words came from right behind his shoulder, but Patrick didn’t look around. One thing he’d quickly grown accustomed to was the constant press of people around him. He learned not to carry his wallet in his pants pockets, and he learned that the boisterous Italian voices were never addressing him, even if the owners of those voices seemed to be shouting directly in his ear.

“Sir? Scusami.” This time the words were accompanied with a light tap on his shoulder.

Patrick turned around, his ability to speak coming to an abrupt halt at the sight of the man standing only inches from him. The Italians were, in general, a beautiful people. The Italian men in particular. They all knew that Americans had a sort of romantic attachment to the idea of tall, dark-eyed, swarthy men with charming accents, and all of the Roman men Patrick had met were happy to take advantage of that. But this one was different. His eyes were a dark blue—darker than they had any right to be—and he had sandy brown hair. His jaw was square and his lips were full, but his nose—slightly too large and angular for his face—made him more interesting than handsome.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you.”

The man smiled, and Patrick almost sighed with disappointment. The smile itself was quite nice—he had good teeth—but it was also familiar. Patrick had seen it a thousand times since his arrival in Rome. It meant I can’t really understand you, but I’m going to be friendly about it so you don’t feel too awkward. It was a smile Patrick had never once encountered in America.

“Share my umbrella?”

The damage was already done, and the stranger’s flimsy umbrella wouldn’t change that fact. On the other hand, he feared it would be rude to refuse the offer. He felt like he was constantly sticking his foot in it, making a fool of himself, and testing the patience of his coworkers, his neighbors, and everybody else forced to interact with his ignorant self. He wished he was actually as arrogant as they all thought he was because then he wouldn’t feel so damned embarrassed all the time. But even if he could have politely refused, he wouldn’t have. That was the nicest gesture anybody had made to him since he moved to Rome, and it certainly wouldn’t hurt his morale to huddle under an umbrella with a Roman god made flesh.

“Thank you, I appreciate that,” Patrick said in halting Italian, cringing inwardly at the sound of his own accent. He didn’t feel comfortable speaking it, but only because he had heard enough to know that he butchered the language with every word uttered.

The man stepped closer and put his umbrella over Patrick’s head, blocking the worst of the cold water. Patrick couldn’t stop his smile, or sigh, of relief. The damage might have already been done, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed buckets of cold water landing on his head. He was so close he could smell coffee on the man’s skin, and knew he’d just emerged from the nearby café, where he no doubt enjoyed a quick cappuccino.

“My name is Patrick,” he continued in the same halting Italian. “What’s yours?”

“Lealdo Fanucci. You are an American?”

“Si, yes.”

“Are you visiting?”

“No. I work here. Well, not quite.” Despite Lealdo’s efforts at English, Patrick decided to stick to Italian. It didn’t hurt to practice, after all. And it would be easier for Lealdo to understand him, even if his accent was offensive to the Italian’s ears.

Lealdo smiled politely. “I do not understand.”

“Oh, well…” Patrick paused, searching his memory for the correct words. Or words that at least sounded like the correct ones. “I have a temporary job. If they like me, they’ll hire me full time. Where do you work?”

“At the Vatican.”

“Are you a priest?”

Lealdo chuckled with real amusement. “No, no. I work in the museum.”

“A tour guide?”

“No. It is…how you say…a cleaner?”

“You’re a janitor?”

Lealdo chuckled again. Patrick was really beginning to like the sound of it. “No, no. I clean the paintings.”

“Oh.” Patrick blinked, feeling stupid for even thinking somebody like Lealdo would do something menial. For starters, the man did not dress like any museum guide or janitor Patrick had ever seen. And he was definitely no priest...