We'll Saturday-Spend Till the End of the Day

My coworker Daniela picks me up in her clean, sporty Fiat. She treats me to a creamy cappuccino at her favorite coffee bar in Cassia, and then she takes me to her hair stylist. With me in the salon chair, the two women confer, in rapid-fire Italian, on how best to work on my uneven, frizzy hair.  

Daniela's brown hair is glossy, and her skin is impeccably suntanned from spending the month of August (chiuso per agosto) vacationing at the seashore. She's stylish and feminine, and I happily submit to her beauty expertise.

For lunch, Daniela takes me to meet her parents. Her mother, also stylish and feminine, serves us pasta that she herself rolled and shaped. Daniela translates back and forth, doing the talking for the four of us. At each opportunity, she patiently teaches me Italian words and phrases.

At day’s end, my girlfriend Daniela drops me off near the apartment on Via Sesto Miglio. After spending this Saturday with her—someone who possesses her own new car, a trendy loft apartment, fashionable clothes, money, and a sense of belonging with Italian language, culture, and family—I feel ashamed to have none of these things.