I ready myself and then answer the phone.
“Hey,” I say brightly. Maybe too brightly.
“Amber,” my mother cries out on the other end. She sounds so far away—which, technically, she is.
“Hi, Mom, how are you?”
“Amber!” her voice is shrill now. “Where are you? Why haven’t you written to us? We have been worried sick about you! Why haven’t you called?”
“Why haven’t you called before now?” I retort.
“Don’t you start with me, young lady,” she says, and I have flashbacks to a million teenage moments. “Even your friend Angela says she hasn’t heard from you.”
“Again,” I say, losing my patience already, “she hasn’t contacted me. And since when do you start harassing my friends for information?”
“I was not harassing her,” she says, “though it’s nice to know you’re just as dramatic as ever.”
“Whatever.”
“Where are you?” she repeats.
“I’m in Capri,” I tell her. “I said that in my last e-mail.”
“You’re still there?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you would have moved on by now. I had a cousin who went there once and she said it was just a rock in the middle of the ocean. She got food poisoning. Don’t eat the fish there.”
I roll my eyes. I don’t even know where to begin. “I really love this place, actually. And I got a job that pays really well.”
“A job?” she repeats incredulously. “Doing what?”
“I’m a nanny.”
There’s a pause and then she bursts into patronizing laughter. “Are you kidding? A nanny? You? You’re always threatening to burn your uterus to deny us any grandchildren. Not that you’ve ever come close to that with anyone.” She adds that last part under her breath.
I’m used to it and shrug it off. “Well, I happen to like these kids, very much.”
“Well, who are they, what are their names?”
“Alfonso and Annabella.”
“How typical.”
“Well, they are Italian, you know.”
“How old are they?”
“Seven.”
“I just don’t believe it. Wait till I tell your father when he gets home. He’s going to have a heart attack.”
“Why is this so funny? I’m doing it. I’ve been doing it for over a month now.”
“Right. Which brings me to the question: When are you coming home?”
My throat closes up, making it hard to swallow. “I don’t know.”
“Well, you have to know, Amber. When is your flight?”
“I haven’t booked it yet.”
“Why not?” she screeches. “You’re supposed to have a return flight.”
“Well, I was waiting to save up money. I kind of ran out of it for a while, when you guys cut me off.”
“That’s when you were supposed to make your plans to come home. You shouldn’t be wasting your time working there when you could be working here and actually building toward something. Your future, perhaps? Remember that?”
“I remember,” I say through clenched teeth.
“So get your ticket right away. You can’t stay in Europe longer than three months or you’ll be deported. How long has it been now?”
Since she can’t quite remember, I’m tempted to lie. “I have time,” I say.
“Do you have enough money for your flight?”
“Yes, don’t worry about it.” And that’s not a lie. Since I took on the nanny position, Derio pays me a thousand euros a month. We both find it kind of weird but he insists he keep paying me so there are no misunderstandings. Besides, the job is hard and deserves to be rewarded. I take the money because everything he says is true. Plus, I do eventually need to go home.
Or do I? I can’t go an hour now without asking myself that. It’s just too bad I can never come up with an answer.
“You know your father is going to ask me these things and when I can’t give him a straight answer, he’s going to call you.”
“So let him call,” I say and make a mental note to never pick up the phone again.
“How is your weight?” she asks.
I sigh. “Fine.”
“You know Italy is a fattening country. All that bread and pasta and dessert.” She sounds so suspicious that it pisses me off.
“I’ve gained ten glorious pounds since I’ve come here!” I nearly yell through the phone. I’ve actually lost about five, but she doesn’t need to know that.
She nearly gasps. “Amber, that’s terrible.”
“It isn’t,” I say. “The men here loooove it.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve fallen in love with an Italian boy. They’re unfaithful lovers. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
I can’t listen to this anymore. “I’m going to go now, Mom.”
“Amber, you better be careful. Are you using protection?”
“Bye, Mom, I love you.”
“Amber.”
“Arrivederci!” I cry out and then hang up the phone. I wish it were a good old-fashioned rotary so I could really slam down the receiver.
I look over to the fridge and see Annabella standing there, eyes wide.
“Who were you talking to?” she asks.