When he finally wakes from the first dreamless sleep he's had in a week, he realizes that he's on a train, and that it's coming to a stop. As the dust clears from his brain, he remembers with a start that he's on his way to Italy. Rome, to be precise. He sits up, so suddenly that all he sees is a big blurred black splotch, and he closes his eyes for a moment to let the dizziness pass. When he opens them again and looks out the window, the sky is still a deep blue, and the lights from the station platform make it hard to see anything beyond it with any clarity. "Rimini," the sign says. He wonders how far that is from Rome and looks around the train car for his backpack so that he can check the map in his guidebook.
And that's when he realizes that all of his stuff is in the other train car, where Finnick and Thresh are. He should get back to them, he knows, but it's only just past 5 am, and they still have almost three more hours before they reach Rome. So he decides to take advantage of the quiet of the car he's currently in, where he's the only passenger. It's his first view of Italy, after all, and he wants to take it all in, by himself.
He watches as the sky lightens to a slate blue and the dark shadowy forms of the buildings in his line of vision start to show color and texture: walls of yellowish browns and paler yellows mixed in with the occasional faded pink and peach, topped with roofs ranging from muted reds to blackened browns.
And then he sees water. Lots of it. And boats — sailboats, fishing boats, a few luxury yachts. It's a scene that so perfectly fits the vision in his mind of what a southern European coastal village would look like that it takes him a moment to realize that it's not supposed to be here. Or rather, he's not supposed to be here.
The day before, he'd pored over the map of their route from Munich, where they'd boarded their train the night before. He knew they were taking an inland route, through Milan and then Bologna. There shouldn't be any boats, any blue-green water, any seagulls.
He jumps out of his seat to walk back to the car behind him, where the guys are, where he can look in his guidebook and find out where Rimini is and how they ended up on the wrong train, but as he gets to the connecting door, he sees that there's no car on the other side. He's on the last car of the train. Maybe he's remembering it wrong, he thinks. Maybe it was the car on the other side. But when he checks there, all he sees is a man and a woman cuddled under a blanket.
For a moment he desperately hopes that he's still sleeping, that this is just a dream, that he isn't stranded on a train in a foreign country with no passport, no ticket, and no money. And no shoes. But it's clear that it's not a dream, because when he says "What the fuck?" it actually sounds and feels like his own voice saying it, as opposed to when he's dreaming and it sounds and feels like he's talking underwater.
He takes a deep breath and replays the events of last night in his mind. They'd had a six-seat compartment to themselves and had pulled down the seats so that they were fully reclined, and while it had been cramped, he'd actually been sleeping decently until Finnick had started snoring. When he hadn't been able to ignore it anymore, he'd gotten up to take a walk and had ended up in the next car, which had been completely empty. He'd decided to sleep there and figured there was no need to wake Finnick or Thresh to let them know; he'd always been an early riser, and he was sure he'd be back before either of them woke up and certainly well before they arrived in Rome. So he hadn't worried about leaving his backpack, and his shoes, under the reclined seats.
He decides that he should keep walking through the train. Maybe Finnick and Thresh are playing a practical joke on him and are occupying a car on the other end. And maybe he can find a conductor who can explain where this train is headed.
He makes his way through five cars without seeing any sign of Finnick or Thresh and is feeling like he's in a David Mamet movie when he sees a conductor.
All he's managed to memorize from the phrases in his guidebook are Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening, Excuse me, Please,Thank you, and Do you speak English? So he attempts to say Excuse me, do you speak English, wondering what he'll say/ask if the answer is affirmative, and hoping that the conductor hasn't yet noticed his lack of footwear.
"Yes, yes; how may I help you?" the conductor replies.
"I'm really sorry to bother you sir, but I got on this train in Munich, and I thought it was going to Rome—" he begins.
"No, no, you did not get in the right car. The cars in the back went to Rome. These cars will go to Ancona. The train split in Milan."
"Oh," he says, closing his eyes for a second as it all becomes clear. Finnick and Thresh and all his stuff were on their way to Rome.
"You need to get off at Monteriano and take a local train to Rome. Next stop."
"Okay, thanks," he says slowly, wondering what he will do once he gets off and has no ticket and no money. He decides to throw himself at the mercy of the conductor. "The problem, though, is that my ticket, my money, and my passport are all with my friends, and they're on the train to Rome. I got up in the middle of the night to sleep in the next car, but I didn't know that the train was going to split, so I ended up on one of these cars instead."
The conductor stares at him for a moment. Then he bursts out laughing. One of the passengers nearby starts laughing too, and then starts — presumably — explaining the situation in Italian to her companion, who then starts laughing as well.
"Too much drinking last night, right?" the conductor says, clapping him on the back.
"No," he says, shaking his head and smiling ruefully. "I just fell asleep and thought I'd be awake before the train arrived in Rome, so I left all my stuff in the other car."
"So you have no phone?"
"No, actually, I didn't have a phone anyway, but my friend does. I know the number but I don't have a phone or a phone card to call him with."
"You can use my phone," the conductor says, handing it to him. "Tell your friend that when they get to the station in Rome, they can go to the station office to fax your ticket and passport to the station in Monteriano. When we get to Monteriano, I will get the fax number for you, and you can call your friends to tell them."
"Thank you so, so much, sir; I'm so sorry to cause you all this trouble." But when he dials Finn's number, all he gets is a busy signal. "The call's not going through," he says, handing the phone back to the conductor.
"Oh, yes, probably because they are still in the mountains. O.K., I will call my friend in Monteriano and ask him to meet us at the station. You can wait there and borrow his phone to call your friend later. As long as they fax your ticket and passport to you, you can get on another train."
"Thank you so, so much, sir." He curses himself for causing these strangers all this trouble and resolves to get the conductor's name and address, and, later, the conductor's friend's, in order to find a way to show them his appreciation later. The conductor gets on the phone and is soon speaking rapidly and animatedly and then practically doubling over in laughter.
"O.K. My friend said he will meet us on the platform. He doesn't speak English, but I explained everything to him. And he said he will bring you some shoes," the conductor says with a wink.
"Oh my god," he says, half to himself and half in reply. So the conductor had noticed. "I really can't thank you enough."
"It's O.K., it's O.K.," the conductor replies, chuckling. "I used to be young."
Less than ten minutes later, they pull in to the Monteriano station, where a middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair and a lot of scruff greets the conductor with cheek kisses. "Good luck," the conductor says, with a wave, and then he is gone.
"Buongiorno, I'm Peeta" he says, pointing to his own chest and then extending his hand. "I'm very sorry I don't know Italian," he says slowly, exaggerating his enunciation.
"Haymitch," the man says, shaking his hand with an amused look on his face. "For you," he says, holding out a piece of paper with a fax number on it and a pair of fuzzy orange bedroom slippers.
"Oh, gracias — I mean, grazie, grazie, thank you so, so much" he replies, mortified at both his inabiilty to communicate and the fact that he's going to be wearing these slippers. He'd rather go barefoot, but how can he refuse when this man is going out of his way to be kind to him? He slips them on. They're a little small, but since they're backless, they're manageable.
Haymitch laughs and claps him on the back. "Come," he says, and they walk out of the station and into the square, where the light is so bright he has to shield his eyes with his hand. He follows Haymitch to a dark storefront. Peering through the doorway, he sees that it's a bar or cafe, or both.
"Wait. Here." Haymitch points to the bar/cafe. "I back."
"I. Wait. Here?" he parrots back, again speaking slowly and over-enunciating. "You. Come. Back?" God, what is wrong with me, he thinks. I'm such an asshole. I'm talking to this man like he's a two-year-old.
Haymitch lets out a guffaw. "Yes, yes, yes," he says, clapping him on the back with another guffaw, and setting off for the other side of the square.
So he walks into the bar/cafe and takes a seat at the table closest to the door. And that's when he sees her. She's wiping down a table and scowling, then impatiently trying to brush back the dark strands of hair that are matted to her forehead and temples. The rest of her hair swings in a long braid down her back. When she bends down to grab a bottle under the table, he stares at her ass for a moment before quickly looking away.
She's got to be the most beautiful girl he's ever seen — most beautiful woman, he corrects himself, hearing Delly's voice in his head: she's not a girl, Peeta, she's a woman. At least, he hopes she is and that he hasn't been ogling someone who's under 18.
When he chances a glance at her again, she's standing at another table, listening to an older, grey-haired woman. The scowl is gone, and she's almost smiling. And then she opens her mouth and speaks, and his own mouth drops open. He can't understand a word she's saying, but the sound of her voice and the way it lilts around a language that he already thought was wonderfully musical is enough to make his mouth run dry, and he forgets that he's now openly staring at her. He curses himself for spending all those years studying Spanish instead of Italian.
Then suddenly, she's making her way over to him, brow furrowed, eyes narrowed. He tucks his feet further underneath his chair and tries to school his features into what he hopes is a friendly expression.
"Hi," he blurts out. Oh god, he thinks. He didn't even try to say that in Italian or to ask if she speaks English. And now she's looking at him like he's the Ugly American. But he guesses he pretty much is at this point. "I mean, um, buongiorno, buongiorno." He tries to smile.
She's scowling again, but then she looks down and sees his slippers, and the left corner of her mouth quirks upwards, just a little, for just a second. And then she's looking at him like she's just waiting for this interaction to be over.
"You're waiting for my uncle, right?" she asks, but it's not really a question.
"Oh — you're American?" he blurts out in his surprise and then mentally smacks himself upside the head. She could be Canadian, you idiot, he tells himself. "Or, um, I mean — North American?" he asks, wincing at how ridiculous he sounds.
She rolls her eyes. "I'm from Massachusetts," she says, and she turns to go.
"Oh yeah? I'm moving to Providence in the fall — for med school" he says, but she just stares at him. He wonders if it sounded like he was bragging. "I'm Peeta, by the way" He holds out his hand for her to shake and she takes it reluctantly.
"Katniss," she offers, grudgingly, and then starts to turn away.
"So, uh, have you lived here long? It's just — your Italian is so good." Ugh, he thinks, when will he figure out something not stupid to say to her? Or to anyone in this country?
She rolls her eyes again. "So I've been told. My mother's Italian, so she always spoke it to us. I'm just spending the summer here, helping take care of my grandfather."
"Oh, that's great," he says. "I mean, it's so great of you to help out your family like that. And — and it's great that you got to learn Italian from your mom," he finishes lamely. Oh god, he thinks, now she's looking at him like he has two heads.
"Yeah," she says, turning away again. He doesn't try to stop her this time. "My uncle should be here soon," she says without turning back to face him.
He fights the urge to put his head in his hands. He never has trouble talking to anybody. How does she have this effect on him?
After about ten minutes, during which he desperately tries not to stare at her as she goes about taking orders and serving coffee, he watches her disappear into the back room with a cellphone in her hand. When she emerges, she's heading straight toward him, lips pursed.
"Here," she says, handing the cellphone to him. "My uncle's still busy. He wants you to use my cell to try your friend again." She sits down at his table but doesn't look at him.
"Oh gosh, thanks so much." He dials the number, and this time, it rings. On the fourth ring, someone picks up. He can barely hear over the clamor on the other end, but it's Finn. "Finn, it's Peeta."
"DUDE! Where the fuck are you? We're almost in Rome. We looked all over the fucking train for you. We talked to the conductor but he said—"
"Dude, I'm so sorry. I went to the next car in the middle of the night and fell asleep, and then the train split and I ended up on the coastal line. I'm in a town called Monteriano now."
"WHAT? Why didn't you—"
"Look, Finn, I'll tell you everything later, but I'm borrowing someone's cell phone. I'll meet you guys in Rome, but I need you to fax a copy of my Eurail pass and my passport over to the station here so I can get back on a train."
"Yeah, yeah, dude, ok, just tell me where to fax it."
He gives the information to Finn and tells him he'll call again when he knows which train he'll be on. When he hands the phone back to Katniss, her fingers just brush his index finger and thumb, causing him to stammer when he thanks her.
"I can't believe they let you leave the station without a ticket and ID," she says, with more than a hint of accusation in her tone.
"Yeah, the conductor believed my story and kinda felt sorry for me, I guess."
She rolls her eyes. "Of course he did. You're a rich white kid."
"Well," he says, "I'm definitely white, and yes, you could definitely say I'm rich compared to the vast majority of the world's population, but I'm not exactly a trust fund baby or anything." Great, he thinks, now it sounds like he's denying his privilege. Which maybe he was. Damn it. "Though I see your point," he continues. "I'm sure the conductor gave me the benefit of the doubt because of the color of my skin."
"And also those blue eyes that make you look so innocent."
He stares at her. Did she really just say something about his eyes? "Uh, yeah, I guess," he says.
She looks down and bites her lip. "M-my sister has them too," she mumbles, still not looking at him. "Blue eyes, I mean. And the blond hair too, actually. And she never got in trouble for anything. I was the only one who knew how evil she was."
He laughs. He can't believe she's said this many words to him.
She actually smiles then, but then catches herself and stops. "So, what — you're slumming it through Europe on your parents' dime before you go back and face the real world?"
"Actually, I only have a week to travel; I'm going home in four days. I was working near Madrid teaching English to businessmen—" ugh, he thinks, she's going to think he uses sexist language — "and women," he hastens to add. "I mean, there were women at the school too, but my students all happened to be men" he says, and she's looking at him like he has two heads again. "Anyway. The pay was pretty good, so I decided to use some of it to do a little traveling, but I have to get back to the States so I can work some more before school starts." He can't believe she's still listening to him, so he continues, "What about you? How long will you be here?"
"About a week more. I, um, just graduated too, and my job starts in two weeks. In, um, in Boston."
Did she just voluntarily tell him that she's soon going to be living an hour's train ride from him? he wonders. No, that must have just been conversational filler, he tells himself.
Suddenly, Haymitch appears in front of them, smirking. "I see you two are getting along swimmingly," he says, in a perfect North American accent.
He feels like he's back in that David Mamet movie. "Wait, you speak English?" he blurts out.
Haymitch lets out another guffaw and claps him on the back. "Sorry, boy, it was just too much fun to watch you squirm."
"Oh my god," he says with a half-laugh and shakes his head.
Haymitch is still laughing. "That was the most fun I've had in a while. And I wasn't even drunk."
He looks at Katniss, who's looking down at the table and appears to be fighting a smile. She's also made no move to get up from the table, even though he'd finished using her cellphone long ago. Granted, he notes, there aren't any other customers in the place anymore, but he's sure she would have found something else to do if she didn't want to be sitting here with him. It figures that she's finally warming up to him just when he needs to leave. Maybe he can ask for her e-mail address, on the pretext of getting some tips from her about places to go in Boston.
"I — I guess I should go to the station and wait for that fax and see when the next train is," he says, reluctantly.
"Oh, did Katniss here forget to tell you?" Haymitch asks. "'Course she did." He grins. "She's heading to Rome tomorrow; I'm sending her down there to pick up some stuff from a buddy of mine. So why don't you tell your buddies you'll meet them tomorrow, and you can crash on my couch and ride down with her in the morning."
He sees that Katniss is looking at the ground again. She's probably not a fan of this plan. "Oh, thanks so much, but I wouldn't want to impose."
Katniss is still looking at the ground, and he's about to add that his friends will want him to meet them as soon as possible anyway, but then she speaks up.
"It's not an imposition. You can make sure my uncle here doesn't hurt himself when he comes home drunk," she says, looking pointedly at Haymitch, "since I'll be at my grandmother's and won't be able to do it myself. And you might as well see Monteriano while you're here." And then she looks back at him, and he loses any further inhibitions about saying yes.
"I'd really like that. Thanks so much. To both of you." He still can't believe he's going to get to spend more time with her.
"Don't mention it," Haymitch snorts. "Like I've never been so drunk I ended up on the wrong train."
"I wasn't drunk. My friend was just snoring so much I couldn't sleep — and I knew I'd wake up way before the train was supposed to get to Rome—"
"Yeah, whatever, boy. I'll see you back at the house. She'll show you where it is." He gets up to grab a beer from behind the bar and raises it in their direction before walking out.
Katniss is looking down at her hands but hasn't made any move to get up.
"I wasn't drunk," he says. "I just — I just — was an idiot," he finishes ruefully.
"Yeah, you were." And then she smiles. "But I bet I would've done the same thing. My little sister snores like a freight train. I used to share a bed with her when we were younger, but no way would I do that now."
He laughs. Maybe he can get her to keep talking, he thinks. Maybe he should ask her if she wants to take a walk, to show him around. He'll go barefoot or wear these slippers, whatever she tells him to do.
And then his stomach growls. "Sorry," he says.
"You're hungry," she says. And something in the way she looks at him changes.
"Starving," he replies, grinning sheepishly.
She goes into the back room and comes back with a long, thin loaf of bread. "Here," she says, and tosses it for him to catch.