Rome and Beyond

I arrived by train in Rome and took a cab to Via en Caterina, just off  Piazza Farnese, where friends of my parents had a villa.   A real villa.   A villa with lots of ancient rooms, some even overlooking the Vatican.   For me, my parent's friends had only open arms.  "Please stay with us.  Stay as long as you'd like"  That's the way I remember it.  But it's possible my memory here may be just shy of accurate. You see, I stayed for eight months.  In about the fifth month of my stay, the friends actually took a vacation from Rome. If they were dropping a hint,  I didn't pick up on it.   I had the place all to myself, that's all I knew.

The friends of my parents also had a son. We became friends. I'd like to call him Frank. Frank went to the American School in Rome and had lots of friends, who soon became my friends.  Especially a friend named "Mary".   Mary had a great laugh, liquid blue eyes and a wild streak that would very soon come in handy.   Mary was, it turned out, only 16 years old.   I was 21.  But the age difference meant nothing to us.  We got to talking, Mary and I, and it turned out that while Mary had seen much of the world, she had barely seen anything of her own country..  I told  her about some of the places I'd been and she was particularly taken with The Great Salt Lake.  Could you really float on it?   Was it true about all that salt making you buoyant?   I had never been to Great Salt Lake, but I assured her that it was all true.

Mary snuck into her house and picked up her passport.  I already had mine.  We headed for the airport.  There was a plane to Salt Lake City with lots of stops of course, leaving in about seven hours.   We hung around Leonardo Da Vinci Airport, which had all the security in the world, having recently been the target of terrorists.   Finally they checked our tickets.  They checked our passports.   I don't recall having the sensation of getting away with anything.  Certainly nothing illegal.  Soon we were in the air.  An adventure lay before us and we didn't have a care in the world.   That's what we thought.  

We landed first at JFK in New York.   Mary had not seen New York either so we decided to get off the plane and explore the city, which I knew quite well.   Soon I was in touch with my friend Richard (real name).   He was out of breath, even over the phone. "Where have you guys been?" he said,  "Do you realize everybody's looking for you.  Her parents.  Interpol.  Everybody."

Interpol?  I said.   Why?   Because, Richard said, she's underage and left Rome without permission.  Not only that, her parents don't know you and they're scared.  Richard put us up for one night.  A good night, it was too.  But when the next day arrived, it was obvious that Mary had to go home.  We were in lots of trouble.   Incredibly, on this end, Mary couldn't get a plane ticket back to Rome.   She was, Pan Am said, too young to get one on her own.   Mary pleaded with them and a sympathetic supervisor finally let her go.  I never saw Mary again.