A Semester Abroad Read Online Free Page B

don’t you just give her some more money and in the future we’ll all do our own shopping.”
    Lisa sighed. She got another 5,000 out of her purse and handed it over to Janine. “This is all I have right now.”
    “I just think it’s pretty stupid and cheap,” Janine looked directly at Lisa for a full second, “for us to all buy our own toilet paper. And if we want to keep this place clean, we’re going to need soap and shit.”
    Michelle’s tentative voice came from the kitchen. “Maybe we should make a list of supplies and take turns buying it.”
    “I think that’s a good idea,” I said.
    Lisa looked annoyed again. Janine grimaced at me behind her back, and I tried not to laugh. In her own way, she would be just as bad but more entertaining.
    “Look, Lisa, I can’t see how you have a problem with that. We are living together we are going to have to make some sacrifices,” I said.
    “We have to wipe our asses,” Janine said cracking up everyone up. Lisa laughed the loudest but nervously.
    We sat around the dining room table for the remainder of the afternoon. Lisa brought some Italian book she had and kept thumbing through it, saying words and their definitions to us. Janine wanted to talk about the boys she had seen on the trip to the grocery store.
    “Do you have a boyfriend, Gabriella?” she asked me.
    “No.” I answered without hesitation. I wished Jonas didn’t flash into my mind.
    “Well, I do. I have more than one,” Janine said. Michelle laughed. She knew all of Janine’s stories, the way Kaitlin and I knew each other’s. And she listened the way we did, as if she hadn’t heard it before.
    “It’s not exactly going to stop her,” Michelle said.
    “Doesn’t sound like it.” I said, smiling. I wanted to get along with them, but I was cautious. I had been through it all already. The first few weeks of college when you think everyone in the world is your best friend, you get close and then you realize you are nothing like them. I already sort of sensed I wasn’t like them. I didn’t feel I could be like anyone. Jonas had zapped my emotions, I wasn’t sure I wanted to invest so much again.
    “American boys suck,” Janine said. That I could agree with. “Bring on the Italian men.”
    “
Uomini italiani
,” Lisa said. I looked at her. She mistook my expression for not understanding and relished the thought of explaining to me. “Italian men”
    “Yeah, I got that one, thanks.” I said.
    “Whatever,” said Janine and inexplicably lifted up her shirt to flash us her red bra.

    I met Olivia at the bar Barone Rosso. It took me forever to find. I got lost off the main streets and meandered around for a while, not wanting to embarrass myself asking for directions with the wrong words.
    We sat upstairs. Downstairs, a band was singing songs in Italian and English. All the Italians were singing the words to every song. They sang with passion, their voices traveling into the upstairs section.
    One of the boys from Olivia’s group drank a big mug of beer called 
birra alla spina,
 which cost 7000 lire. I bought that because it was a cheap way to get drunk.
    I dodged the crowd in the bar and the women with the trays. These women wore short skirts and held the trays of drinks high above their heads. They said 
permesso
 as they tried to get past patrons. Their voices rose above the music and the singers, repeatedly punctuating the sound of the bar.
    Upstairs, one of the guys from Olivia’s group, Kurt, began talking to me. He raised his eyebrows and held my gaze, flirting. He laughed about my big beer.
    Then Olivia came over and introduced Suzie, her roommate from the program. Suzie was thin and tall. She had a thick mess of brown curly hair. And when she arrived, Kurt turned his attention completely to her. He did not look at me again. He acted as if he was waiting for Suzie the whole time, just practicing on me.
    “He was talking to her on the plane. He came to our room before