Betty's First Trip to Rome the Prequel - Chapter 7 – Sharing a cup of coffee
It was the next morning and Gio, Daniel and Hilda were seated at the same quiet table in the coffee bar. The all had cups filled with steaming hot coffee in front of them.
Hilda described how she had listened to Betty the previous night for hours. She told them how she had spent another hour or two afterwards considering a couple of different plans of attack.
Hilda had discovered that Betty was very angry at Gio and that she was firmly convinced that she did not want to ever see him again. She blamed Gio for making her angry. She blamed Gio for everything that was wrong in her life. And she felt she had a lot of things that were wrong in her life.
The problem looked severe and it was especially severe given that they only had a few days to change her mind enough to go on a trip with him. That would require a very big change in the way she was thinking. It was definitely going to be difficult. Hilda did not underestimate the difficulty of handling someone with Betty's temperament.
Betty was very firm about the things she believed in. She was not a person that was easily swayed by others. She would not even be easily swayed by her older sister that she loved dearly and regarded highly.
Gio and Daniel listened intently as Hilda described the gravity of the situation.
"I think what we have here is a case of transference," stated Hilda. "That's the technical term. You all know what that means?"
"No. Please explain," asked Daniel.
"Betty has transferred all her dissatisfaction in life onto Gio," said Hilda. "She believes that he is the cause of all her problems. She needs to escape Gio so she can get her life back. That's pretty much it in a nutshell."
"How could I have done that?" said Gio sadly. "What did I do so wrong?" He stared into his coffee cup limply, weary from lack of sleep and puzzled by Hilda's conjecture.
"Wow. Look at you, Hilda, you missed an amazing career as a psychiatrist!" said Daniel. "That's brilliant. How do you know that stuff?"
"Movies. I loved Analyze This. I can't tell you how much it annoyed me the sequel was so bad," Hilda replied.
"Oh, god! So we're going with the Billy Crystal School of Psychiatry? And we think that'll work?" Gio said and rolled his eyes.
"Hey, did you see How to lose a guy in 10 days?" asked Hilda.
"That's a chick flick. So no, I didn't see it," said Gio.
"In that one Kate Hudson's best friend pretended to be a therapist and she did a great job of getting Kate and Matthew McConaughey together," said Hilda brightly. "See, no training required!"
"Gio, I'm afraid you will have to get used to watching chick flicks when you seal the deal," Daniel said with a smirk. "You'll find it kind of goes with the girlfriend territory."
"Thanks for the heads up Daniel," Gio said dryly. "But in any case movies are not like real life."
"Well, my other qualification is running a hair salon," said Hilda. "I have listened sympathetically to just about every problem under the sun. You would not believe. I have years of experience, and I'm telling you it isn't all sunshine in there. Not by a long shot. You'd be amazed at what I have heard!" Hilda defended her skill at talk therapy vigorously.
"So then, what do you do about transference?" asked Daniel. "How do you stop it?"
"I'm working on it. I have scheduled another session; I mean another sisterly heart to heart, for tonight," Hilda replied. "You can remind me that I have to pick up a tub of ice cream when we are through here. After that, if it isn't too late I'll call you with an update. Otherwise let's just meet here tomorrow morning. Same time?"
They all agreed.
"How's it going at the shop?" Daniel asked Gio. "Who is making sandwiches while you are here?"
"I had to bring in a new guy for the month I'm in Rome," said Gio. "He is training this week. I was going to spend more time with him but he's fine. He knows what he is doing. It isn't rocket science. He can call me on my cell if he has any problems. So, the shop is doing fine without me, thanks for asking."
"Good. I want to take you shopping after this. You need some new clothes. You need a whole makeover," said Daniel.
"I don't recall that being in the plan," replied Gio with a puzzled tone. "I think I handle my clothes fine. Are you saying there is something wrong with my clothes?"
"We can get to that later," said Daniel.
"Remind me to go over that with you, before you leave," said Hilda.
"Let me tell you what I've done with Betty today," said Daniel. "She is in the town car taking Daniel Jr. to a series of interviews. He needs a tutor so he can get into the best school and I have given Betty the job of shopping for one. He doesn't really need a tutor that's just what I told her. She has appointments all over town. She will not be back until the end of the day. I'll join them in the car and then Daniel Jr. and I will drop her off at the house. That'll be about seven this evening. Will you be ready to take over Hilda?"
"Yes. That's perfect," Hilda replied. "Justin will be taking Papi to a computer class at the senior's centre. It starts at seven. Will you drop in?"
"No, I don't want her to suspect that I am involved so I'll stay in the car. I'll keep an eye on her until she gets in the door."
"Okay, that's fine," said Hilda. "Now what I think we need to do is to choose some kind of activity with a group of people there so that Gio and Betty can both attend, but not have to talk to each other or be too close together. This is called desensitization. Normally it would take weeks, but we are just going to have to see if we can compress it. Ideas anyone?"
"Dancing?" suggested Gio.
"Certainly not," said Hilda. "If you dance with her that would be way too close together and otherwise it is not close enough. We're nowhere near ready for dancing. We're going to have to do this in baby steps."
"Movie?" suggested Daniel.
"Nope. That's no good either," said Hilda. "They wouldn't get a chance to mingle or even talk, assuming I can get her to the talking stage by then."
"What ideas did you have in mind?" asked Daniel.
"I was thinking of bowling. Do either of you bowl?" Hilda asked.
"I like bowling," answered Gio.
"I don't," answered Daniel with distaste.
"You could learn," said Hilda. "You could take Daniel Jr. bowling. He might like it. I could bring Justin. I think the idea has merit but let's kick around another couple of ideas. Maybe we will come back to it later."
"Museum?" suggested Gio.
"Hmm. That sounds pretty good," said Hilda. "Betty likes museums. It has to be in the evening though."
"An art opening?" suggested Daniel.
"I like that idea," said Hilda "Is there one tomorrow or the next day? We can't wait for it. It has to be now."
"There's always something on," said Daniel. "Some are pretty obscure but that doesn't matter. I could tie it into work somehow. I can ask a few other people to go that Betty knows, like Christina."
Hilda tapped her lips thoughtfully, "Yes. That's sounding pretty good. Can you get into some of them and preview the exhibitions? We don't want anything with violent or mature content."
"What's the criteria?" asked Daniel. "What kind of content isn't allowed?"
"Well, nudity, obviously. That's a no go. Especially male nudity," said Hilda. "Too bad for me, but that's definitely not what we're looking for here."
Gio was listening intently. He was starting to become encouraged by the matter of fact way that Hilda and Daniel were working on fixing his trip to Rome. He was finally starting to feel like there might be a fair chance that it could work out. He was relieved and happy and thankful to them for trying. He was anxious to see Betty and he desperately hoped that he could make a good impression when he saw her. He wanted to do anything possible to make a good impression.
"Uh oh, I hope we can get her past that nudity thing," Gio mused. "Have you been to Rome? Just about every street corner has a fountain and every fountain has a statue. Greek gods, royalty, statues of all kinds of people, men and women, and almost all of them are starkers. The museums are crammed with that stuff. It's all out there larger than life. You know David, right? That's what I'm talking about."
"Wow. That sounds like my kind of place!" exclaimed Hilda. "But, not Betty. Whoa, it is so not her, can't you avoid that stuff?"
"There is one museum where you can avoid it," replied Gio. "The Vatican museum. All the statues have fig leaves on them. It makes me laugh, they're so ridiculously repressed."
"Now, Gio, Betty is going to be a little sensitive," said Daniel. "Keep that in mind. That museum sounds perfect for her."
Gio suddenly blushed. A thought occurred to him that he hadn't thought of before. He put his hands over his face for a moment. "Um, is there something about Betty I don't know? She is twenty-four, right?" he asked. "She is twenty-four." Gio looked at Hilda intently.
It took a second for Hilda to grasp Gio's meaning. Then she laughed and exclaimed, "I loved Steve Carell in forty year old virgin! That was hilarious. He's a genius!"
"So, is she?" Gio asked Hilda with a flustered expression. He was astonished he was asking Hilda what he was, but he had to know.
"She does act young for her age. But she isn't Gio," said Hilda in an amused tone. "She's been there, done that. Not often, but once is enough, right? Actually when we were growing up people used to think Betty would become a nun. Not me of course. I won't repeat what they thought I'd become."
Hilda smoothed her blouse, unbuttoned another button and adjusted herself so that her pretty black lace push up bra was peeking out of the blouse just the way she wanted.
Gio and Daniel gaped at her, and glanced at each other.
"We wouldn't want to hide these puppies under a nun's habit now would we?" she asked.
"No," breathed Daniel and Gio.
"Luckily for you Gio, Papi doesn't want her to become a nun either. Amen," said Hilda pausing to cross herself and say a silent prayer. "Just so you know, children are expected. I don't want to get the cart before the horse, but you might as well be forewarned. Papi needs more grandchildren, that's a given."
"I love kids!" said Gio. "They love me."
"I love making them," said Daniel.
"Well, that too, of course," replied Gio. "What's not to like about that?"
"Let's talk about cologne," said Hilda, bringing them back to the task at hand.
"I've got that on my list. Perfect grooming is essential for my part of the plan and I have it all written down," said Daniel, pulling a piece of paper out of his pocket and unfolding it. "I thought I'd suggest the one I use, what do you think?" He leaned over to Hilda "Smell me. Check me out."
Hilda tilted her head close to Daniel's ear and took in a big breath, "Mmm. Yes, that's good, very good, but of course, there is one big problem with it."
"What?" asked Daniel. "It's the best, works every time, guaranteed."
"Well, obviously, the problem is that Betty associates it with you, Daniel!" said Hilda. "We can't take the chance of introducing any more confusion here. There is enough of that going on already. You have to get something completely different. Try all the samples on Gio and see what works."
"I don't want Daniel smelling me!" exclaimed Gio with alarm. "I can pick something out myself. This is getting kind of personal, isn't it?"
"For your information you let the nice lady at the counter smell you, not Daniel," said Hilda. "You let her pick. Just make sure it isn't anything like Daniel's cologne. That's important. I better go over the list. Give it to me Daniel. Every detail has to be perfect from ties to chest hair to underwear. Everything!"
"Underwear!" shouted Gio, shocked and embarrassed.
"Yes of course, underwear too, we'll get to that in a moment," said Hilda, looking at the list.
Gio looked miserable.
Hilda continued in a cheerful business-like tone, "Alright, let's see what we've got here."