I nearly spat out my water. And then a few hours later, “All right. We’re fine. No one got arrested. So I can only assume you’re on your date right now. I hope it’s going splendidly. I just wanted to remind you that you promised you’ll read something at Garbo tomorrow night. No excuses!”

Right. I did promise him that. This would be Jahan’s last reading at Garbo, after nearly four years of hosting them. It was a bleak reminder that he would be leaving Rome in less than two weeks. In two weeks, there would be no one to convince us to drink prosecco in the afternoon, no one to spread the gospel of Joni Mitchell, no one to determine which cheeses were gay, straight, or asexual.

What would Rome be without Jahan?

• • •

I went to Tiberino to try and write something for tonight. Mr. Pedrotti brought me a glazed apple pastry, which was delicious and sweet but did nothing to get my creative juices flowing. I wanted to pull my hair out. I didn’t have a creative bone in my body. I preferred sticking to the facts on Wikipedia—hard, citable facts.

Suddenly a shadowy figure appeared over my notebook. I looked up. It was a girl, and she had short hair, almost a buzz cut, and an extremely angular face.

“Whoa! I know you!” I said.

It was Laura Pedrotti.

Laura dumped her shoulder bag on the table, nearly knocking off my laptop, and sat down. She kicked up her feet.

“You look just like your pictures,” I said.

Laura folded her arms. “Oh, do I?”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” I stammered. “You’re just—you’re very pretty.”

“Oh, please, go on,” she said, sweeping her hands. “I love nothing more than to be objectified, especially when it’s by the nerd who made my Wikipedia page.”

“No, no, I’m not objectifying you. I’m actually—”

“I’m just playing with you,” Laura said. She had a very tiny accent, though she sounded more American than anyone else I’d met in Rome. “Thank you for that page. I don’t want to sound like a narcissist and say I appreciate it, but . . . I appreciate it. So my dad tells me you’re struggling to write a poem? Is this for a class or something?”

“He told you that?”

She showed me the texts, which were in Italian but loosely translated to BOY WHO WROTE YOUR WIKIPEDIA PAGE IS TRYING TO WRITE A POEM, YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL WRITER, PERHAPS MY BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER COULD DO FAVOR FOR THIS POOR AMERICAN.

“Trust me,” Laura said, “his texts are even more ridiculous when I’m at school. He gets a little carried away when he texts. He’s convinced I inherited his way with words. You can put that on the Wikipedia page.” She winked.

Oh my God.

Was she flirting with me?

Did Laura Pedrotti want to get with the creator of her Wikipedia page?

“Thankfully he doesn’t have my girlfriend’s number,” Laura continued, “so she is not victim to his texts. Yet.”