Bon Vivant
by Emily Dietsch

Buongiorno Dearests

It is week two of my midwinter Roman holiday. This morning, I sit perched on a balcony in my nightshirt, bare legs dangling through the railings as I greet the city with properly animating coffee in hand. Yes, this from the girl who proclaims undying love for the frostbitten and the snowy. Dare I say it? I do not miss the New England February chill at all. My parka and scarf are utterly forgotten, may they rest in frigid peace.

I'm staying at my college mate M's apartment, and it has wooed and won me. It sits atop a very old building in a very old section of this very old city – I don't think there are enough "very olds" to convey adequately its near-prehistoric age – and is equidistant from the Vatican and the Roman jail. As it is, M. and I are serenaded alternately throughout the day by churchgoers' hymns and prisoners' songs. Quite appropriate for this holiday of heavenly sins, no? Yes, let me count my indulgences: for one, the daily (sometimes twice-daily) pilgrimages to the gelateria for a scoop. I order un piccolo to watch what remains of my waistline, but the proprietor seems to think my figure could stand plumping and customarily doles me an XXXL-sized mound. Ah, my dears, I've caved to the conspicuous consumption of it all: uncounted bottles of wine, a baker's dozen of operatic meals, and one unconscionably pricey pair of p-e-r-f-e-c-t stilettos. The heel was born and lovingly bred here, after all – and a girl mustn't forget her fashion history amidst her gastronomic worship.

What is it about Rome, come to think of it, that morphs even the primmest of prims into Anita Ekberg, in all her Trevi Fountain-stomping glory? Never mind the cause, I'll take the effect. My first day here, for instance, I glimpsed my much-too-moppy fringe in a shop window and made haste to the nearest barber. The barber in question, a thimble-sized, craggy man wearing wool trousers tucked nearly to his chin, skirted me into his chair with a cluck of his tongue. With a few snips he transformed me from waifish and mousy-haired to… well, still waifish really, but with new and improved va-va-voom locks. The bangs make for especially fun vamping, I've found, infusing a certain "come hither" into every otherwise innocuous glance. Who knows? With a little practice, I might qualify as sultry.

For the Italians, though, nothing screams siren like a girl in an apron – bangs or no bangs. Food and lust are inseparable chums here, and who's to argue with that? It is our arrangement, M. and I, that I cook and he does the dishes; he is as hopeless in the kitchen as I am with a sinkful of dirty pots and pans, so this scheme has worked quite well for the both of us. Late yesterday evening we two teetered up the (suddenly very steep) staircase to M's apartment, famished of course, and rolled up our sleeves to make a rib-sticking carbonara. Neither chianti-impaired knife skills nor low pantry reserves can hamper this Roman classic, a holy marriage of pasta and pork fat in its simplest consummation. We took our bowls al fresco, sating ourselves by the heaping forkful until the distance from balcony to bed seemed too great. Poor overstuffed M. neglected his dish duties, but recompensed this morning with coffee and breakfast. Again, who's to argue? A girl could do worse.

-–x o x o, E