"I Prrrefeer You..."

I had an epiphany yesterday on my way to Piggly Wiggly. A Duran Duran song from the early nineties (yes, there were still a couple of Duran Duran songs out there then) came on the radio and sent me back to the poolside of the moderately-priced hotel in Rome where I stayed for a few days as a young pup fresh out of college.

Oooohhhh... that was such a time! It was my first exposure of what God had in mind when He created the world. The beauty of the landscape! The bottomlessness of the drinks! The field of soccer-playing Carabinieri! And that Duran Duran song playing in a loop! Eden, it truly was...

Especially the soccer-playing Carabinieri. The tour group I was with - about twenty-five other women around my age (there was one Puerto Rican guy named Diego) - fell silent at the sight of the dark, vigorous, shirtless Italians who were seriously kicking the hell out of a soccer ball on an open field by the pool. Oh, how we all secretly longed to be that ball, rolling from tanned, muscular leg to tanned, muscular leg, with a prime view up their Umbros and occasional sweat beads dropping onto the canvas. Mmmmmm...

Because this was Rome in late June, the air was a bit toasty. So, to our great fortune, the Italians eventually became as overheated as we were and descended upon the pool. Yay.

"Noisy, boisterous Italian comments! Repeated happy shouting!" they yelled, jumping into the water in their soccer shorts, splashing each other to get our attention. Well, that, or we were unknowingly on the set of a gay porn flick.

But it wasn't a porn set. Because it took all of two seconds for the first cute guy to sidle up to a cute girl in our group and ask, "Zo, awhe-ar you frrrom visiteeng?" Score!!!!

So we confirmed that these were, indeed, bonifide heterosexual men serving in the Italian military (well, most of them), freeing up my radar to waste no time zooming in on the one I dearly wanted.

Fabio.

Yes, that was his real name - why would he make up such a thing? I noticed Fabio the second he made a ripple in that pool and can still see him shaking the water off of his black hair. As cute as he was, he wasn't the most beautiful of the bunch. Nor the most exotic-looking. In fact, what drew me to him was, ironically, that he reminded me of a certain American.

John Cusack.

Now, I'm not saying he looked like John Cusack, because every friend of mine whom I have made look at my Fabio pictures has been completely underwhelmed. But I thought he did, or at least he reminded me of John Cusack. With whom I've been in love for several decades now.

So far, the love has gone unreturned.

But sadly, I was a second too late for Fabio, or so it appeared, because before I could roll my tongue back into my mouth, he was heavily flirting with another girl in our group, a reformed Jew from D.C. named Stephanie.

Because I'm not down with O.P.P., I just let it go, but with a disappointed heart. After all, it was reflective of my relationship with John Cusack anyway, so I was used to it. But later in the evening, when our group was hanging out by the pool again, this time in real clothes and drinking our many bottles of wine that we had smuggled from Paris, who should also make an appearance???

I'll give you tre guesses.

Yes, people, the Carabinieri chose to spend the evening with us!!! AND they were all clean and freshly showered, wearing nice jeans and shirts (we got over it, though).

Fabio sat down at the table across from me and next to a very handsome guy named Tom. Tom was clearly making a play for me, but I was still clearly interested in Fabio. And Stephanie - well, she wasn't there. Something about visiting the Coliseum...

So, considering that the odds of ever landing Fabio again were very slim, I flirted hard with him through facial expressions since I had no idea what the hell he was saying. And despite the fact that I must have looked like I was having a stroke, he responded. I could tell because he also looked like he was having a palsied fit whenever he tried to speak to me.

Not only that - he and Tom actually started having a few words, because I heard low, mildly angry rumbling between the two of them, kind of like how dogs do if their food is being threatened. But Tom could be as mad as he wanted - he looked nothing like John Cusack and therefore was useless to me.

At the end of the night, after hours of laughing, drinking, and everyone trying to communicate through a single French-to-English dictionary, Fabio walked me to the elevator. The butterflies I were starting to feel were palpable and had absolutely nothing to do with the veal I had consumed for dinner.

And there we were, standing in front of the brass double-doors that would forever close upon my Roman Holiday. He touched my hair and looked into my eyes. I placed my pink hand upon his dark one. I- very slowly and a tad dramatically - asked,

"But- what about...Stephanie?"

And his response? I will NEVER, EVER forget it:

"I prrrefeer you..."

And with that, he kissed me. A yummy, exotic, Milanese kiss straight from the Old World.

Ohhhhhh!!!!

And yes, Stephanie had indeed returned from sightseeing to join us later in the same evening - but she was just a little too late. He did, indeed, actually prefer me! At least that's my version.

About once a year or so, something will remind me of that night and I'll think of Fabio. I even had a weird dream about him a couple of years ago - he was adding on to my house.

And who knows what he may be doing now, if he's even still alive, or would ever remember that night himself. Doubtful - I was just some American girl in his hotel.

But for me - well, for a moment by that elevator, he actually made me forget John Cusack.