Jessa thought she might faint, which would be super embarra.s.sing, so she really, really willed herself to not. No fainting. No fainting, she repeated over and over in her head. So far so good.

"What is this?"

She cleared her throat. "Oh, that? I was in a Sea-Doo accident. When I was eight."

"Sea-Doo?" He laughed again, the funny American word like rocks in his mouth.

"A thing you ride across water. Like a jet-ski. Like a little motorized boat that you sit on." Jessa swallowed, her throat full of what felt like sponges. Wet ones. He was still holding her hand, his finger still resting on her scar.

"I know jet-ski." He let go, sat back, and rested his arms on his bent knees. His eyes swept over the groove of trees they were sitting in. "a.s.sisi hasn't changed so much in a hundred years. It is nice here, no?"

"I love it here." Jessa blinked into the yellow light. Somehow, even the light here seemed settled, slower. "Being here makes me feel like my whole life somewhere else is just a huge fraud."

His smile let her know that she hadn't said something stupid, and Jessa noticed something almost sad in the curve of it. There seemed a weight on his body, the way his shoulders sagged at the edges-and it wasn't from wearing a cape.

Without thinking, Jessa rushed on, "I feel like crying here. All the time."

He stretched out on his back, lying flat on the ground, his hands tucked under his head like a pillow, and closed his eyes. "That is Italia."

#12: dictionary.

definition.

Outside the church entrance, Jessa could still see the muzzle of the sleeping dog lying in the pool of late afternoon sun. She had stepped over him to get into the church, and he hadn't blinked. Two women called to each other, one from the street, one from a high, out-of-sight window. The Spoleto streets hummed with Italian, with machines rebuilding, reconstructing all the beauty of this terra-cotta town, competing with the birds in trees twittering, rustling their wings.

Jessa lit a candle and gazed at the Virgin Mary. The virgin gazed back. The church was both warm and cool, the air smelling of ancient dust, of candles. Her body seemed to drain of all its tension, becoming part of the flickering light, the primordial air. It struck her that this feeling was a lot like she felt in the costume barn, the peaceful emptying of her mind, or at least the way she used to feel in the costume barn-before. Jessa was starting to separate her life in this way: B.C.B. (before costume barn) and A.C.B. (after costume barn). Never before had her life been so cleanly divided into a before and after, not even when she moved out of the city. For better or worse, that day she threw open the door of the costume barn, she found herself on a distinctly different path, without a map.

Here, in the matte light of the church, it seemed for the better. In the candlelight, she traced the scar along her arm, the ghost line of Giacomo's fingers. Smiling, she checked her watch. Ten minutes until she needed to be back for dinner.

After their time-out, they'd boarded the bus in silence, penitent, under Mr. Campbell's watchful eye. She'd watched the landscape slide past the bus windows, the olive trees, the watercolor sky, on the short drive from a.s.sisi to Spoleto, where they would spend the night in a converted church.

"That is Italia," Giacomo had said.

She sat on a little wood bench in the church and peeled open Carissa's latest envelope. She hadn't done the last one, hadn't shouted "Hey, Cafe Dumba.s.s" into the still air of the bus. Mostly, it just seemed really, really stupid. Not to mention that none of Carissa's other shouting instructions had done much to help with anything. And Sean's phantom smile when she walked past his seat had been too sad. Maybe Italy had gotten to him too. All that air and sky, that melted-candy palette.

Or maybe it was just that Natalie and Jamal had taken their two-act show on the road. Act 1: break hearts. Act 2: make out. No intermission.

The paper crinkled, echoed in the dim of the church. Her candle flickered and shifted next to the others, casting the room in dappled yellow light.

Dictionary Definition-they'd been playing the game since sixth grade. Well, forcing people to play it. No one liked it quite as much as Carissa and Jessa did. She'd been waiting for Carissa to bring it up as a reason Sean's a jerk, was actually kind of surprised it hadn't come up until Reason #12.

One of her most uncomfortable moments with Sean had been during a game of Dictionary Definition. They'd been backstage at the end of the Hamlet run, their relationship not even fully formed, like a bubble emerging from a wand, not even caught on the air yet. The word had been amorous, and they were playing in teams. Jessa had defined the word as "feelings of love," and it was Sean's turn to use it in a sentence. Without pause, he'd said, "Jade makes me feel amorous."

Jerk. Carissa had thought that Jessa should break up with Sean then and there, but he'd said he was sorry, just blurted it out, didn't mean it. Jessa hadn't much wanted to play team DD since.

But Carissa's instruction wasn't for a team game. It was the individual rules.

OK, you have three definitions to write: Boyfriend Love Jessa For individual DD, the game worked like this. You made up a fake definition and a real definition. The other person playing had to guess which one was fake and which one was real. Usually the words were a little harder, like contrition or aromatic: SAT words.

Or maybe these words were harder.

Tyler slid into the seat next to her, smelling of perfume. "Holy candles, Batman."

Jessa pa.s.sed him the envelope. "You smell like a girl."

He flushed, a totally un-Tyler thing to do. "Yeah, I was hanging out with Cameron." The girl from the disco in Venice.

Jessa shot him an amused look. "Hanging out?"

"She's really cool actually. She totally hates her school. How all those girls are so materialistic. And she can't help it that she's super rich or whatever." He cleared his throat, kicked a black shoe onto his knee, motioned to the envelope. "So, Dictionary Definition."

"Yeah, no surprises for you, I guess." Jessa gathered up her things, trying to keep the knife edge out of her voice.

Tyler ducked under its blade. "For the record, I think it's one worth doing." He stood up, dug his hands into his pockets. His hair seemed especially shiny and black in all the candlelight, his dark skin warm.

"Thanks for not pushing the last one." Jessa slung her bag over her shoulder.

He shrugged. "Hey, didn't want to manage you and all that."

"Even if sometimes I really, really need it?"

"No comment."

Jessa looped her arm through his, and, with the candles dying behind them, they exited the church into the pink Spoleto evening, the air smelling of roses.

Ms. Jackson collected them after dinner for an attempt at another creativity salon. She looked at little skeptical, considering the disaster of the last one, but there they were, all huddled into a nook of the converted church they were sleeping in that night. They sat on wooden benches, the walls lined with candles. At least it gave them a break from the other group.

Jade took her guitar to the front of the room, hooked the braided strap across her back. She sang in that coffee-ice-cream voice of hers, a sweet song she had written on the bus: Why can't Pluto be a planet anymore If he's still up there in the stars?

Why can't Pluto be a planet anymore While Neptune parties with Venus and Mars?

Jessa closed her eyes, her body rocking back and forth.

Someone was staring at her.

Her eyes blinked open. Giacomo stood in the doorway, his eyes on her. When he saw her see him, he smiled. Jessa nodded and fixed her eyes on Jade.

Pluto, you were promised an atmosphere, You circled the sun, a rogue moon masquerade, Pluto, we're all promised constellations, We're all orbiting alone, don't trade Your planet dreams...you'll always be a planet To me. You'll always be a planet to me.

Jade finished singing, nodding to the applause and whistles.

"Fabulous, Jade." Ms. Jackson beamed. Her eyes searched the room. "Who's next?"

"I'll go." Jessa surprised herself, her body standing before she'd registered it. She knew the room was nervous. What nut-bar thing would crazy-heartbreak-drink-throwing-limerick-spewing girl do this time? "I promise I won't be a jerk this time."

"OK." Ms. Jackson motioned toward the seat Jade had just left.

Jessa unfolded the sheet of paper from her pocket, her instruction from Carissa written on the back of the note itself. "So you guys know about that game Carissa and I play, Dictionary Definition?"

Nods all around. They'd been going to school together for a while. Jessa was pretty sure she'd made them all play it at some point or another.

Tim raised his hand. "Will this make me feel amorous?" Sean flipped him off.

"OK, so Carissa's making me give the definition of my name." Jessa licked her lips, focused on her own handwriting. "So I wrote this. It's called 'Middle Name.'"

It might help to start with my middle name. Ray. Not the girl way of spelling it. The boy way. R-A-Y. It was my grandfather's name. He lived in San Diego where my mom grew up-out in El Cajon which means "the box," which is a little like what you feel pressed into when you're there in the summer but where I used to swim in this huge blue pool and so it will always feel like water-that place. Like floating.

When I was four, my grandpa would play Scrabble with me on the little balcony of his mobile home which always felt like walking on the moon, all foamy and flexible. Of course, I couldn't really spell very well. I was four. But he'd let me make words up with my jumbled string of letters. Then he'd p.r.o.nounce them to me and declare the points. KLQGT-fifty points! RUSBD-thirty-five points! And he'd tell me, his calloused hand like a b.u.t.terfly on my arm, when maybe I accidentally put them into some sort of order that actually made sense.

Once, I spelled slick-and he brought out a shiny piece of white paper from his pocket, a receipt or something, and smoothed my little finger along it. "Slick," he told me, the skin wrinkling like tissue around his eyes the way it always did when he smiled at me. A real word entirely by chance. Each tile clicked up against each other, unknowingly making sense. At least to my grandpa.

That's Italy so far. To me. All those tiles suddenly making sense.

Folding the paper into tiny squares, Jessa sat down again next to Dylan Thomas, who had come in from the meeting with his group and sat on the end of a wooden bench. The clapping happened slowly, then some whistles. She tried not to notice Sean's face, the way he watched her like he smelled roses all around, like the candles weren't the only light in the room.

The girls all had to sleep in one big room. It was sort of like that Madeline book Maisy had been obsessed with when she was four and made Jessa read about five thousand times a week. Sleeping in two straight lines...Which meant she had to sleep in the same room as Natalie, watch her shimmy out of a pink shirt over a black-lace bra, slip into silky red pajamas Jessa's mom would never in a million years let her try on much less own. Watch her brush her white-blonde hair with a glossy pink brush over and over and over as if the brush transferred shimmering rays into that hair with each stroke. No one's hair should be that shiny when it wasn't under hot stage lights. Seriously, there should be some sort of law.

Maybe she could get appendicitis just like Madeline did in Maisy's book. Men in white shirts would wheel her away to a hospital bed lined with flowers and a dreamy rabbit picture on the ceiling and a distant papa would buy her a dollhouse. It would be so great to get appendicitis right now.

Jessa pulled on her own cotton pajamas that made her look five. Natalie was applying some sort of mint-scented lotion to her feet and it wafted across the room. She caught Jessa staring, held out the green tube. "Want some?"

Jessa shook her head, made a big show of tugging on some socks. She had to get out of this room.

After a maze of hallways, Jessa found a courtyard outside lit with small torches. Ms. Jackson had said to take twenty minutes, get some air. She curled up against a stone wall of the church in her sock feet and a jacket over her pajamas. The air had turned cool, coppery, like pennies tinged faintly with smoke.

Someone was playing the guitar. It drifted like snow across the courtyard, a low tune she didn't recognize-a sad, gorgeous melody that made Jessa think of blank, starless skies over a dark sea. It made her want to swim in that sea, let it cover her.

Then she saw her. Red-haired Madison from the other group, caught up in shadow only a couple of yards from where Jessa sat, a guitar across her lap.

Madison played the guitar-like that?

Madison's hands fell away and her face tipped toward the torch light, clouded, tired. Scrubbed clean of makeup. She wore a pair of jeans, the knees ripped out, and a black hoodie. Her feet were bare, the nails manicured a deep shade of purple.

She noticed Jessa and stubbed out a cigarette that was burning in a little dish next to her. "Hey." Setting the guitar to the side, she tucked her legs up close to her chest. "I didn't know anyone was out here."

Jessa inched toward her. "That was beautiful."

Madison shrugged. "For a hundred bucks an hour, the guy better teach me how to play." She ran her hands through her hair, the red like blood in the torchlight. Her gaze fell on Jessa. Her eyes widened. "You OK?"

The question caught Jessa off guard, realizing that it must visibly show that she wasn't-OK. "Not really."

"Tell me about it." Madison traced a groove in the stone courtyard with her finger. "This vacation blows. I should have gone to Vail with my parents."

Nodding, Jessa breathed in the clean, wet air. Had it rained? Lights dotted the layered, charcoal line of hills all around, all the small houses, hundreds of small lives gathering their night together.

"But I don't need to tell you that, huh? I heard she got to your guy first." Madison laughed a little, a real laugh-no gla.s.s cracking, just dry and low and sad.

Jessa flashed to the image of Madison kissing Jamal in the Pantheon, on tiptoe, laughing. She realized Madison had been crying just now. "I'm sorry about Jamal."

Shrugging, Madison ran her hand over the strings of the guitar emitting a sound like a ghost. "Guess I should return this to the guy I borrowed her from." But she didn't make a move to leave.

Madison didn't say anything for a long time, and Jessa thought that was it for their conversation. What else could she possibly say to this girl? Not much in common but Natalie's taste in boys. But then Madison said, "I guess I should have just done it. He wanted to. People think I'm such a s.l.u.t but I'm not." She strummed another ghost note. "What's the big deal, right? You do it sometime or another. So he found option two."

Jessa's whole body grew warm. She and Sean hadn't done it either. Had talked endlessly about it. She had wanted to wait-had felt like she should wait, even when being pressed against his warm skin made her skin feel like it was taking root there, finding its home. Actually, she had been planning Italy in her brain. Had thought that maybe Italy would be the right place. She caught Madison's eye then. The girl held her gaze.

"I don't ever want to be just an option," Jessa told her.

The next morning on the bus, Mr. Campbell pa.s.sed back their stuff. "Here's your virtual brains," he said. But his smile had returned and he laughed at Devon's dramatic display of reuniting with his PSP. "Nelda! Oh, my soul! Wherefore hast thou traveled, my love? We shall never part again!"

They were heading back to Rome for a lighted tour of the city at night, and the rhythm of the bus was familiar now, the movement from one place to another lulling Jessa into a trance. Earlier, as she'd settled into her seat, Madison had pa.s.sed her on the way to the back of the bus, had given her a sweet, knowing smile.

As the bus left Spoleto behind, Jessa curled into a seat with her iPod and Portrait of the Artist, and just melted into the words, letting Stephen's world become her world, his heartbreak and confusion her own.

An hour or so later, a pa.s.sage in the book made her pause. She clicked off the Sarah Brightman humming low on her iPod and scanned the beautiful lines in the novel again, her eyes resting on the line: A day of dappled seaborne clouds.

In the book, Stephen had realized that words, the sheer beauty of them, could alter the glowing sensible world, turn it into a prism of language. She read the pa.s.sage again, its taste sugary in her mind. Words-and, for her, music. The way she could wash herself with sound, with words, with the luscious order of them-so free, but put there on purpose, in a journal, in a song. Her Harry Potter invisibility cloak from the real world. She preferred the words, the music, to dust-covered reality. She saw the world the way Stephen did-in all its crazy, beautiful disorder.

Love-her dictionary definition. This was love.

Not everyone saw life the way she saw it, not everyone stared out a moving bus window and saw the world's sherbet colors, its gauzy, shifting clouds like wraiths, full of beauty and sadness. An eternal, tumbling world. But she did. She saw the world this way, read its pain between the beautiful lines.

She pulled out her phone and texted Carissa: Love is the beauty of this world pressed nose to nose with all its pain.

She had tears in her eyes-tears. And they weren't about Sean. They weren't about her loss of him or even the beauty of olive groves slipping by outside. They were just tears, for all of it and none of it; for being so very, very small in a world so very, very big. For noticing. When most of the bus around her was probably just blissfully wondering what they would have for lunch. Sean always told her she was too sensitive, an "overthinker," but she realized this was just the start of it. She was an overnoticer, an overfeeler. She walked around like an exposed nerve, her skin alive with millions of tiny little antennae, when he just walked around, fully armored, ensconced in his own singular world.

She added another line to her text and hit send.

Boyfriend: someone who gets that I see the world in this ridiculous, beautiful overfelt way, knows how necessary it is to me. Who maybe, just maybe, feels it too.

She rattled a sigh out of her closed throat, blinked into the dry air of the moving bus. Mr. Campbell glanced up at her over his New Yorker and he knew. Somehow, he knew. She held up the book. He nodded, his smile barely there, just enough to tell her he knew.

#13: backstage.