ℬᎾℳᎯ

12AM, 24TH SEPTEMBER 2019.

"Happy birthday Ivan, you're a man now. . ."

Nah. That's not going to work.

I sit up and fold my legs on the small bed. We checked in forty-five minutes ago, our rooms are on the second floor and the hotel, just like everything in Venice, favours style over space. It's small. Not small like a kiosk or living house, small when compared to Maasai Mara and Zanzibar, but style beats space anyday. The room smells like something Mom would flip over, european scents and cinammONY things. Not grass and ocean. Everything else about the hotel, I didn't memorise because I was too exhausted.

My phone buzzes, lighting up the dark green duvet. A cake dances across the screen: IVAN'S BIRTHDAY!!!

I know what I'm going to do, I'll send him a simple text, nothing special, after all, I'm spending the whole day with him.

"Hey, happy birthday. I'm super exhausted so I can't romanticize anything. Don't reply 'cause I would have gone to sleep. That's a rule." It sounds simple enough so I send it. After the message is marked as delivered, I squeeze the fluffy pillows, exhale Venice and close my eyes.

********

The day starts like any other great day in Venice. I wouldn't know, being that it's my first great day, but you get the gist. Rippling waters, people on passing gondolas speaking Italian: Ciao here and there, Bellissimo this and that. I'm on the second floor but it sounds like it's coming from outside my freaking window.

"First things first," I check my phone, sure enough he replied at 12:10AM.

A knock on my door distracts me from replying him. I jump off the bed, stealing a brief glance from my window at all the brown roofs spanning the city, before walking over the rugged floor to the wooden door. I peep at the intruder and start smiling.

"Rule breaker, I said don't reply." I say.

He laughs. "Are you just getting up?"

I leave him at the door and walk over to the huge dressing mirror. Drool marks and frizzy hair. Yikes. "Yes. I'm just getting up." I laugh at myself, then turn back to find him watching me. I totally forgot I'm wearing my night-tee, it's not exactly well covered. I pull it down but cotton isn't the most obedient fabric. I give up trying to cover up and he smiles.

Maybe I should give him a birthday kiss, compensation for bad texting. Nope, not brushed, my breath is poison.

I start to walk back to him but I stop. My body feels afloat. I shake my head, then take another step and the room tilts. I grab hold of the wall to steady myself. He rushes to hold me. "Bo, what's wrong?"

"I feel dizzy."

"Should we go to the hospital?"

I manage to steady a glare at him. "On your birthday?" My stomach growls an angry long growl. He looks down so I know he heard it too.

I look back at him and he starts laughing. "You need to eat something. That's why you're dizzy. Come," he leads me to the bed and we sit. "So I wanted to tell you, we can have breakfast and then settle for a spa afterwards. Would you like that?"

I roll my eyes and drop my head in my hand. "It's your birthday, you're eighteen, that spa idea sounds like a golden jubilee plan."

He laughs again and falls backwards on the bed. "I don't feel any different. Eighteen is a hoax."

"You're not supposed to feel different, you just have new leverages, like if you kill someone, you'll go to real prison, not Juvie." I expected him to glare at me and he does so I join him on the bed, laughing.

"You could have said I'm legal to drink and club, but you chose prison?"

"What? I had to put it out there." I say. He laughs again, then we're both silent, so silent that the sloshing water outside echoes.

I turn to look at him, he doesn't look at me but he smiles a knowing smile.

"We-"

"What other plans do you have?" I interrupt him. He gets up from the bed in a flash. "Why did you get up so fast?"

"I felt stirred," he says, arching his brows.

"Stirred?"

"Yes. You said never, remember? So I had to flee."

God help me with this boy.

"Why are you laughing?" he asks.

"'Cause you're basically terrified. Look at you, fidgeting like a baby fish."

"I see, you were testing me?"

"No, Ivan." I resume laughing again. "You're crazy."

"You get me crazy, then you cry after. So, no, thank you."

"Now you make it sound like I'm crazy."

"You kind of are." He approaches the door and I relish the sight; taut male behind in sweat pants. He's right, I am crazy, but whatever. "We should go hunting." I say.

"Hunting what?" He turns around.

"It's Italy duh, the country of pizza, pasta and stuff. So we should just tour and eat at different spots."

"We don't have a tour guide so we'll definitely get lost."

"Not if The Oracle is in our palms." I pick up my phone and turn it on. "Best pizza places in Venice." I say.

The mechanized voice speaks back. "Here is a list of pizza places near Venice. . ."

He opens the door. "Okay, good idea. We should shop for Scarpe."

Scarpe. "Is that another Italian word?"

"Shoes. We should shop Italian shoes."

"Okay, I'll meet you in twenty minutes." I blow him a kiss, he catches it and shuts the door.

********

9:15AM. I grab my backpack. In it, I put my passport, and other travel documents, then I slip out of the room.

At the reception, I push through the glass doors, immediately getting hit in the face by the cool morning air. Ivan stands in the street, his hands folded into the pockets of his khaki shorts, with his camera dangling around his neck. He peers at me, a small smile dancing on his lips, then at his phone. He always has this reaction when I wear shorts.

"We can't go too far," he says. "I don't want you to exert yourself, or we could just take a water taxi."

I roll my eyes. "I want to walk."

"Stubborn." He shakes his head.

We walk down the empty sidewalk, the low morning sun is cloaked in the cloudy sky, beckoning us into the distance. St Mark's square draws nearer with every step. We divert to the quiet back streets of the city, passing by rows and rows of old stony storey buildings with small balconies in atmospheric neighbourhoods that have countless small docks on every corner.

"Walk five-feet to Rialto Bridge." The mechanized voice instructs. We walk the five-feet towards the foot of the small stony bridge. My stomach grumbles again and I ignore it.

From atop the white bridge, a canal runs under, there are dozens of gondolas and a small ferry moving across the blue-green water with excited tourists as passengers. Ivan snaps a few shots of us smiling, in one we're kissing, then we walk through the bridge and into what looks like an open market place. There are individual stalls with canopies, where locals walk about buying fresh food: fruits, huge garlic heads, probably the biggest freshest red tomatoes I'll ever see, fresh fish from the gondolas docked around, then there is cheese, probably a thousand different kinds in a million different colours all injecting their cheesy smells into the air.

"You see that cheese?" I point at a thick block of white cheese. "We call it Parmigiano Reggiano, or parmesan for you non-Italians," I say.

He laughs. "Is this you showing off?"

"Could be," I smirk.

"Who's the we?"

"All of us at Food Network." I say, waiting for him to burst into laughter so I can join him.

When we walk out of the market, we enter into a residential complex or commercial area with similar looking cramped up gothic buildings, symmetric and simplistic but classical with over the top arches and columns painted in hues of dark red, muted yellows and bright blues, resembling those seen at the square but smaller.

"Pizza de La Maggiore." The Google voice announces. We turn and surely, it is right there in front of us. Thankfully, there's no line so we nudge ahead into the restaurant.

A guy walks up to us. He says his name is Gregorio, with sleeked back black hair and a curly black moustache. He reminds me of Antonio Banderas' character as Agent Cortez in Spy Kids. Gregorio treats us first to a history of the restaurant dating as far back as 1976, then he goes on to explain their dining options ranging from non-pizza venetian staples, Ravioli and Bigoli, which are pasta-like dishes, to their customer favourite pizzas, and how their thin crusts and excellent tomato sauce make them the most sought after pizza place in Venice. The reviews on google support his claims so he helps us make our first order, Pizza Alla Napoletana. In no time, we are brought two white plates of steaming pizza, one slice each.

Gregorio says it is hot but it sounds like 'it is á hot á!' I'm also beginning to like his curly moustache.

After excitedly blowing on the pizza, I pick up the wide end and direct it into my mouth.

Oh my god. Wow.

I don't know what I'm tasting, it's supposed to include marinara sauce sourced from the freshest tomato and mozzarella cheese and basil and all these good things but it's wow. Just wow. I believe Ivan is having these same thoughts. I hold my thumbs up at Gregorio as he smiles.

********

The last pizza we tried contained mushrooms, a cheese I can't pronounce, and seafood. It was great too but the first one will always be my favourite.

Ivan pays the bills and we promise Gregorio to drop a review on google. I just did that.

We walk out of the restaurant into the open, the morning chill has given way to the afternoon heat, as the sun now shines high and happy in the cloudless blue sky. We pass by giggling kids speaking Italian and white people taking pictures. That street opens into another street and another which opens into a narrow dock with the water sloshing as more gondolas pass by.

Our next stop is Marco's Pizza then Suso's Gelatoteca for ice-cream then we'll keep hunting until the sun goes down.

Stressful? Yes, but opportunities like this don't come twice in a short life span like mine.