Page 2 of The Roman Holiday Rule

“I’d have overheated.”

She giggles, a bit on the hysteric side, but I can work with that. Her shoulders loosen.

By the time she’s tagged, weighed, and sent off my suitcase, her pleasant goodbye is genuine.

I join Julie atDunkin’.Over iced caramel swirl lattes at the tiny table, we tweak the designs for our social media blast that will drop throughout this week leading up to theRoma Festival: L’arte della vita.

A half hour later, we’re as done as we can be. I slide my laptop and journal back into my purse and pull out one of the soft, worn envelopes I’ve been waiting for a year to open.

Mom’s handwriting, long loops and swift strokes so familiar I can almost hear her voice just by looking at it, graces the front.Trevi Fountain.

Around the letters, she’s painted a different watercolor scene on each envelope. This one has a striped hot air balloon drifting above a river where a rowboat floats, a bouquet of flowers laid on its empty seat. It’s bright and whimsical and feels like lazy breezes and all the magic of childhood.

I trace the border of clouds around the Trevi envelope. Mom was supposed to show me all her favorite haunts on our girls’ trip—those magical spots that ended up changing her life. Instead, I have four unopened letters she composed in the months before chemo made her so weak she couldn’t lift a pen or paintbrush, each numbered and labeled with the exact place in Italy where I’m to open them. Decorated with the last art Mom created, they spark nostalgia, love, and grief every time I look at them.

I’ve been both longing for and putting off this trip, searching for the right timing and avoiding the closure I fear will be too final. But the painting reveal on the first day of the festival is a deadline I can’t ignore. I need to see Italy. To love Italy through my mom’s eyes and find the location of the temple in her painting, not only for my own sake, but to honor her legacy for those who admire her work. This trip has to be perfect.

Except for the gaping hole Mom’s death left in my life. There’s nothing I can do about that, but the rest I can control.

“Trevi Fountain. That reminds me.” Julie fishes a shiny nickel from her overstuffed wallet and waves it in front of my face. “Make a wish when you get there. It’s a fun tradition.”

“Fun for me, maybe, but what about for the nickel? No coin’s dream job is to carry a halfhearted wish into recycled aqueduct water.”

“Better than sitting in a gumball machine knowing you might have helped give some kid a cavity.” Julie pushes it into my palm and whispers, “Do it for the nickel.”

I grin and drop the coin into my zippered wallet. “Fine, but it makes nocents.”

She groans. “Please, Lexi. Anything but the puns.”

Someday I’m going to find a pun she can’t resist and get her to join the Dark Side.

I reach for my bag, but it’s tipped over, thanks to the lopsided laptop weight distribution. My favorite green gel pen is dangerously close to rolling out onto the floor. Yikes. I pull the bag onto my lap, slide the envelope in with the others, then zip everything closed. “I should get in line at security.”

She glances at her gold-strapped Fitbit. “You have gobs of time.”

Exaggeration is a subcategory of her intensifying. In this case,gobsmeans forty-five minutes until boarding, half the time buffer I’d prefer.

We gather our things and head to the security area. Over the line’s belt barrier, Julie squeezes me tight in a last goodbye. Dramatic best friends give dynamite hugs.

“Thanks for driving me in.”

When she pulls back to look at me, her expression is intense and compassionate. “Wouldn’t have missed it for the world. I know you have to do this alone, but I still expect a check-in every day. Pictures. FaceTime. Texts. I want to experience itall.” If anyone could live vicariously through the intense power of communication, questions,and imagination, it’s Julie. She clasps her hands to her chest. “I’m telling you, Lexi, you’re going to meet the man of your dreams in Italy, just like your mom met your dad.”

“No, I won’t. This trip is about my mom’s art and falling in love with the places she loved. We’ve been over this.”

Nothing will take my focus from Italy.

Julie starts her enthusiastic waving as the line inches forward. I reach for my passport to show the officer at the last checkpoint before the X-ray machines. My fingers brush past the colored pens, my underlined-on-every-page copy ofSense and Sensibility, the envelopes, my laptop, and charging wires until they graze the bottom.

Julie stops waving. “What’s wrong?”

“My passport. It’s gone.” Ijusthad it an hour ago. I scan the floor around me, but carry-ons and shoes cover the space. My throat decides to help by tightening into Panic Mode.

I take a deep breath, drawing on my work experience with last-minute crises. How many times has the florist not shown up, or the banners printed with an error, or the main speaker called in sick? Regaining control of situations is my superpower.

I duck out of the line and point Julie to the left. “We’ll be systematic and organized. There is a finite list of places it could be. I’ll start with the coffee shop, you head for the information desk.”

This cannot be happening. I’ve had that passport for nine years. I’ve planned out this trip for the last year. But I’ve dreamt of Italy my whole life.