Drake went down the Via Romano alone, late at night, knowing he was probably asking for a mugging, but not caring at the moment. He needed to get out of that house, away from the party that they threw in honor of someone new coming to Rome to pay courtship to one of the three daughters of Signore Capello. Drake had met the daughters, Isabella, Rochelle, and Kristiana. Supposedly he had first pick, since he had arrived first. However, he hadn’t made a move on any of them. In fact, he was avoiding them.
He used school as an excuse, even though all three knew English as well as he knew Italian, which was very well; they all asked if he needed a tutor, to which he always said no. School was a little harder in Italy than it was in the States, as they already made assumptions of things that he had never taken, such as advanced algebra and geology that he needed for an anthropology course.
He also used basketball as an excuse, joining up with pickup teams whenever he could. Signore Capello had met with him a few times, to get a feeling for him. Drake let it be known in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t interested in them. He was doing this for duty. So Signore Capello didn’t push it.
Instead, he tried the guilt, by bringing in a Spanish dragon descended from Conquistadors and kings, Doctor Pere Vega deMartell. He was a medical doctor, well-established in Spain, and would take his young wife with him to a secluded mansion there, where they would have plenty of little dragon babies and continue the line. He was courteous, charismatic, and treated Drake as part of the furniture. Soon, everyone did; except Rochelle, who would sneak sidelong glances at him and roll her eyes.
He did like Rochelle, the middle child. She was funny, and didn’t seem to have a care in the world. She was smart, also going to school with plans on becoming a veterinarian. He wondered if that was why he liked her, because she reminded him of his mother.
Drake turned the corner, blindly going down streets and finding himself lost. He had been in Rome all of three months, long enough, one would think, to forget Henrik and Johnny. He wrote letters to Johnny, and Henrik, well, he had to solve his own problems with that old crone on his own. Johnny wrote back a few times, saying he missed him, but Drake, wrapping himself in schoolwork and sports, was putting all his effort into avoiding the inevitable.
He was thinking about Johnny when someone jumped him, throwing him into the wall. He felt a sharp point in his kidney, and someone with cigarette and booze breath hissing in his ear, “I’m taking this.” He felt someone lift his wallet out of his back pocket.
Drake wasn’t going to give that up easily. He stepped sideways, into the point, digging it more into his side, and lifted his arm behind him, pulling the man’s hair. The man yelped, not expecting that – and as Drake thought, not really out to hurt him, either, because he stepped back. Drake whipped around and elbowed the man in the face. The man howled, dropping the knife, his hand going to his nose. Drake kneed him in the stomach, kicked the knife away into some trash, and took off down the street.
He ran headlong into a policeman on the beat as he came out of an alley, bumping hard into him, making them both stumble. “Officer,” Drake said breathlessly, and turned around.
The man had gotten his wind back and was chasing Drake, but as soon as he saw Drake with the cop, the man took a left instead of going straight and went down a side alley. Drake heard him crash into something, and then nothing.
The cop didn’t have a gun, but he had a baton, which he pulled out. He radioed for backup first – he was smart, Drake thought, not going into that alley without someone behind him.
“Are you all right?” he asked Drake.
Drake nodded, having caught his breath. “He tried to steal my wallet.”
“What are you doing out so late?”
“I’m heading home. I’m lost. I’m from America.” He pulled out his wallet and took out the scrap of paper with his address in Rome on it.
“You had better call a cab.”
Drake frowned, “I know, I should have.”
The cop took off his hat, and rustled at his hair as two little patrol cars pulled up. In the dim light, Drake saw that he was cute, brown hair and dark eyes, the dark Italian complexion that he so adored. He had big hands, but a small body, compact, smaller than Johnny. Drake watched him talk to the men, and they went into the alley, since they had guns. No one expected to find anything there.
“Did you get a look at the attacker?” asked the cop.
“No,” Drake said. “I might have broken his nose.”
“That narrows it down considerably,” said the cop with a smile, and Drake looked down. The cop laughed. “I meant that there are a lot of people in this part of town with broken noses.”
“I really did get lost, didn’t I?”
“Do you have a cell phone? I really would suggest calling a cab.”
“My cell doesn’t work here and I never got around to getting one that does.”
The cop fished in his pocket and pulled out a phone. “Don’t tell anyone I let you use this. Call 06-5551.”
Drake wondered why the cop was being so helpful even as he dialed the number. He gave them the name of the corner he was on. The other cops came back just as he inconspicuously handed the phone back to the cop. They shook their heads at Drake and the other cop.
“What’s your name?” Drake asked, after the other cops left.
“Scordatto,” he said. “I’ll stay here with you until the car comes. Then I will be off my shift.”
“I appreciate what you’re doing Signore Scortatto. I’m Drake.” He held out his hand and they shook. Drake noted he had a firm handshake, and his big hand wrapped around Drake’s like a bear’s around a raccoon’s.
“You’re from America, eh? Where?”
“New England. The White Mountains in New Hampshire.”
“I don’t know where that is.”
“It’s near Boston.”
The cop laughed. “I still don’t know where that is.”
“New York?”
“Yes…”
“North of that.”
“Ah.” He paused, looked out at the night. “What brings you here?”
“Foreign student exchange.” And I’m supposed to get married, but I don’t like women.
“Don’t sound so excited.”
“It’s not that. It’s…complicated.”
“As they say on Facebook.”
Drake chuckled. “Yeah, kind of like that.”
“Are you seeing someone?”
“Yes and no?”
The cop focused on Drake.
Drake sighed, “My father set me up with a family here and he wants me to marry someone from that family.”
The cop raised an eyebrow. “Very old school.”
“They’re old fashioned, yeah.”
“Italian? Drake doesn’t sound Italian.”
“Bluebloods.” Drake said the word in English, because there wasn’t an Italian corresponding word that he knew. Scordatto tilted his head in confusion. “Old blood,” said Drake, trying to clarify. “Rich blood.”
“Ahh, I see. You come from a rich family.”
He shrugged. “We’re a family of collectors, and that’s made us some money.”
“So you want to marry a rich family here.” He motioned northward, the general direction Drake had come.
“I don’t. My father does.”
“Why don’t you?”
“I don’t…”
“Like women.”
Scordatto laughed at the look Drake gave him. “Do you think I can’t tell? How do you call it, ‘gaydar’?”
Drake laughed. A taxi veered around the corner.
Scordatto took out a piece of paper, scribbled on it, and handed it to Drake. “Call me in a couple of days,” he said. “We can get together for a drink, and talk about your rich blood.”
~~~~~~~~~~
Drake indeed called him in two days, and they met at a small organic bar next to a gym that Scordatto went to. He arrived smelling of a fresh shower, which endeared him to Drake even more. It didn’t take long before the two of them were in bed with each other at Drake’s room, and together every so often when Frank – Scordatto’s first name in English – had time off.
Signore Capello left a message on the house phone for Drake to come see him. Drake sighed as he trudged up the steps of the mansion after the taxi left him off at the door. He went to the foyer and saw Isabella there, dressed in riding gear. Isabella saw him, and went ramrod straight, her eyes going cold, her body rigid and stiff. She clutched the riding crop in her hand as if she was refraining from throwing it on the ground at their feet.
She huffed and turned her back to him, her nose in the air, and stalked by him, out the front door. Drake wondered what that was all about.
He found his way to Signore Capello living room. He saw the Signore standing at the couch, watching the TV. It was on CNN.
“Drake,” said the man in his deep voice, muting the TV. “Come in.”
“You wanted to see me, sir?”
They spoke in English. “Let us ‘cut to the chase’ as you Americans say.” He motioned to the chair beside the couch, but he did not sit down. Drake knew this was a power play, so he played the game and sat on the chair. As soon as he sat down, Signore Capello said, “You do not like my daughters.”
Drake stammered, “They’re good – They’re nice – They’re pretty, but–”
“But.” The man looked down at him, his black eyes glowing like coals.
“I don’t love any of them.”
“Love!” Capello threw his hands up in the air. “What does this have to do with love? It has to do with devotion and duty to the line. And you, young man, have insulted my daughters and me by being a libertine with, of all things, a man!”
“Father,” said a voice from the other side of the room. Rochelle, in a light sundress that accented her dark coloring, had peeked into the room. “Am I interrupting?”
“No,” said Drake. “Yes,” said her father at the same time. Drake knew if she stayed in here, she would defuse the ripping into him that Drake was going to get.
Rochelle came in anyway. Her father sighed, returned to Drake. “You have insulted me, and my house, my hospitality and my daughters.”
“How?” Rochelle said.
Capello turned to Rochelle. “What I told you all at dinner last night.”
Rochelle shrugged. “So? It doesn’t bother me.” She smiled at Drake.
“It doesn’t bother you that he takes male lovers?”
“No. Times are different now, papa. It’s all right in America to have lovers of the same sex, isn’t it?” She turned to Drake. “You can even marry of the same sex.”
Drake nodded.
“Then you will marry him,” Capello said, and glared at Drake. “You will not have a choice. I will not have my daughters sullied by your…your…”
“Abomination, I believe is the word you’re looking for, papa?”
Drake swallowed a laugh. What balls this girl had! This tipped the scales in her favor, and Drake finally smiled back. “I’d like to.”
“We can talk about your lovers later,” she said with a very blatant wink, which made Drake blush and her father fume.