Clubbing in Rome with My Sister, 2008

The guidebook says there are only a few nightclubs open in the summer in Rome. The locals are mostly someplace else. My sister and I are on the prowl. We’re in our twenties (my thirtieth birthday on the horizon), each of us in relationship limbo back home; her boyfriend just broke up with her, and I’ve got… something going on with a guy I met at a work conference who lives in Denver, two time zones away. He doesn’t want to label it.

We’re searching.

Uphill, along back streets, postcard-pretty pink sky. Vacant parks, boarded-up carousels. Down some stairs into a creepy metro tunnel to the club — closed. We find another one, “Miami Party Night”… everyone wearing Hawaiian leis. A model-looking guy flirts with my model-looking sister. A boy with a shaved head and glasses says I’m sexy and puts me up on his shoulders, and I drum on the low ceiling. He gives me a hickey. He gives us roses at the end of the night.

It was just what we needed.

It was better than the mime who berated and mocked us for being American, bowing and making exaggerated fawning gestures, who made me cry. (Aren’t mimes supposed to… not speak?)

It was better than the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.