.
Pam looked out the window. She had never actually flown anywhere before, so being on a plane for almost 9 hours was a little nerve racking. She tried sleeping, but it didn’t go well. She would fall asleep and then she would feel the plane jerk or imagine the plane jerking and then she couldn’t go back to sleep. Pam shifted in her sit. The man next to her was having no problem at all sleeping. He was moving in on her space. She leaned against the window. She hadn’t looked out yet. She thought that looking out had a good chance of giving her an anxiety attack.
Eventually she couldn’t stay up any longer. She slept through the bumps, real or fake. When she woke up she saw that the man next to her had shifted in the other direction and was now leaning against a young man. She looked at her watch. She had slept for 2 hours. She wondered if she could make herself go back to sleep. She was so tired before, she wasn’t sure how 2 hours could have suddenly rejuvenated her. She looked at the guy that was being squished by the man between them. He looked annoyed, but he wasn’t doing anything about it. Pam offered him a comforting smile, and he only sort of returned it.
“He was doing that to me early too?” She pointed at the man.
“I tried pushing him, but he just keeps coming back.”
“I’m Pam, by the way.”
“Oscar.”
“Going on vacation?”
“Actually I’m studying in Rome for a semester.”
“Me too! What are you studying?”
“Political Science.”
“I’m just there for the Art.”
They talked for the remaining time. It helped Pam stop thinking about the fact that they were still on this plane. When the plane landed, after what Pam thought was some difficulty, she stuck with Oscar for the rest of the way. They shared a car to the apartment that they would be living at. It made her feel good to know that she wasn’t alone.
Pam stared out the window the whole way there. The city was inconceivably beautiful. She would point things out to Oscar and he tried his hardest to be as enthusiastic about it as she was, but he was never good at showing excitement anyway.
Once they got the keys for their rooms they finally went their separate ways. Pam reached her room and found that her roommate beat her there. It wasn’t a big place; it was definitely bigger than her room at Dunder Hall though. There was a small living room, a kitchen and two bedrooms off to the side. Pam placed her stuff down at the entrance.
Her roommate was short and had blonde hair. “Are you Pam?” Pam didn’t expect the British accent.
“Yep.”
“I’m Dawn. I asked the girl downstairs for your name.”
Dawn was sitting at the small kitchen table drawing. “Are you studying art?”
“Yeah, are you?”
“Art History.”
“Nice. I took the room on the right. They’re exactly the same except one is on the left and the other is on the right. Same view and everything.”
Pam picked up her bags and opened the door to her room. The inside of the room was even smaller. There was a twin bed, a night stand, and a dresser. She put some sheets on the bed and laid down to take a nap. When she woke up it was 6am. She was going to have a hard time getting used to the time change. She walked out of her room and the apartment was completely quiet. She was starving. She decided that she could wait a few more hours to go to the store to pick up some food.
She spent the next hour unpacking her clothes and trying to hook her computer up to the internet. After an hour of trying and failing to get it hooked up she gave up. She got cleaned up and headed down to the front desk.
“Do you know where the closest grocery store is at?” Pam asked the receptionist.
“Down the block.”
Pam waited for the lady to elaborate, but she never did.
“In which direction?”
“Either.”
She sighed loudly hoping the lady would know that she was no help at all. She walked out the entrance and tried to remember if she had seen a market on the way here. She didn’t remember one so she went in the other direction. The street was relatively empty. She reached the next intersection and she looked down both ways. It didn’t seem like there was a market or a store anywhere close in that direction so she continued on her straight path.
After 15 minutes of this she began to get worried. She should have gone in the other direction. She wasn’t lost. She had been on the same street, so that wasn’t the issue. But she actually thought that she might pass out from starvation before she reached the store. She walked for another five minutes before she got the courage to ask someone for directions.
There was a little lady standing in front of a building. She kept translating the sentence in her head. ‘Can you tell me where the grocery store is?’ Over and over again until she was standing in front of her, but when her mouth opened she only said grocery store and she didn’t even say it in Italian. The lady just stared back at her until Pam spit out.
“Alimentari?” She hoped that was the word for grocery store. Her brain had suddenly stopped working.
The lady grabbed Pam’s arm and walked her down to the end of the street. When they hit the corner the lady turned and pointed down the other block. Pam nodded and said thank you. She crossed two intersections. When she hit the second street she could finally hear people. Watching all of those people in the crowd was overwhelming. She walked cautiously through the crowd into the store. It was a long walk and she felt like she should make up for it by buying more. So she did. When she left she wasn’t even sure what she had actually bought. She got a taxi because she wasn’t up for carrying all of this stuff back. When the taxi stopped she wasn’t at the apartment. She wasn’t sure where she was. She told the man the address again. He nodded his head and pointed at the building.
“No, 85 Via Poli. This is not 85 Via Poli.”
The man nodded again and pointed at the building. She got out of the car and reluctantly paid the driver for taking her to the wrong address. She walked further down the block and looked for another taxi. One of her bags was beginning to tear. She heard the bag rip one more time before she saw some bread tumble to the ground.
She was lost and she was hungry. The bread staring up from the ground at her was mocking her. She kicked the bread. She proceeded down the street looking for a taxi when she realized that she had seen this street before. The taxi driver had dropped her off one block over from her apartment. She turned the corner and there it was.
She walked in the building and saw that stupid receptionist staring at her. “Thanks,” she said snidely. Dawn was still sleeping when she got back. Pam began putting her food away. She was so mad that she didn’t even want to attempt cooking. She grabbed her remaining loaf of bread and tore off a piece from the end. She walked back into her room and she looked at the computer. She just wanted to talk to someone from home, but it was 3am there. She tried the internet again and still nothing.
She couldn’t do this anymore. She had never been this frustrated in her whole life, and that was saying a lot because she lived with Kelly and she was pretty frustrating. She also dated Roy, and he was the king of frustrating her. She knew that her parents wouldn’t be up, but Jim might be. She walked over to her purse and pulled out her phone card. The other line rang a few times and she suspected that he was sleeping until she heard that groggy voice.
“Hello?”
“It’s me.”
He sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes. “Hi,” he said quietly. “How’s Rome?”
“I want to come home.”
He could hear the tears that she was holding back. “It’s only been a day though.”
“I can’t do this. I was lost for most of the morning and I’m hungry and I’m tired, even though I slept for most of the night.”
There they were, those tears. He could hear them now. “It’ll be okay. Just give it a few days.” He heard that little sniffle over the phone and it was painful that he couldn’t hold her. “Have you even seen the Colosseum yet?”
“No.” She wiped the tears from her face. She wasn’t sure why she was even crying.
“Could you really leave Italy before seeing that?”
“I dunno.”
“What about the Sistine Chapel? The Pieta?” She didn’t answer. “Go see all of that stuff and then tell me you want to come back early.”
He was right. She let a morning of bad luck ruin her day. “Thank you,” she said.
“Welcome.”
“Were you sleeping? You should go back to sleep.”
“I’m fine. I don’t have anything to do tomorrow, so I can stay on the phone as long as your phone card will allow.” He yawned.
“Go to bed Jim. I miss you.”
“I miss you too.” He pulled his phone away from his face so she wouldn’t hear the yawn. “Call me, anytime, day or night. I’ll answer as long as my new girlfriend isn’t in the room.” He laid back down and closed his eyes.
“I never liked that girlfriend of yours. I hate her stupid white sneakers.”
“You don’t like the sneakers? I love the sneakers.” His voice faded by the last word.
She looked down at those sneakers and they were no longer white after the walk this morning. “Go to sleep, and I’ll try to message you later.”
“Night Pam.” He didn’t fight it; he couldn’t because he was half asleep right now.
She walked back into the living room and Dawn was going through the fridge. She heard Pam behind her and turned around.
“You went shopping?”
Pam nodded her head.
“Did you get lost? I got lost when I went a few days ago.”
It helped knowing that she wasn’t the only one. Pam smiled a defeated smile at her.
“Are you hungry?”
“I’m starving!”
.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Pam arrives in Rome. I wrote this chapter while watching lost so that explains the plane crash in the beginning.
Chapter End Notes:
Next chapter Jim moves back into Dunder Hall and Pam starts classes. Sorry that this chapter took so long to post.
