In Over Her Head by Elsie Russell - Parnasse.com

ROMAN HOLIDAY
Between rows of sleek TGV's was the haughty Palatino, in
shiny midnight blue and gold. The train was due to arrive in the Eternal
City just in time for breakfast. The first class compartment was
decorated with sepia photos of the Alps above the deep plush seats that
converted into bunks at night, complete with crisp white linen sheets.
The little wooden table that folded out over their legs for reading
predated laptops by three quarters of a century but accommodated
Penny's just fine. Mostly they stood in the aisle away from the two
witches, and watched the brown French countryside roll by, him
pressed up against her, their arms intertwined on the window rail. Gray
steeples stuck out from white roofed villages as sturdy red faced
women beat rugs out their open windows and watched the train pass
by. The Alps appeared with the night, white teeth closing on an indigo
sky. The moon came up, ready to be swallowed whole. Ula and Beatrice
slept like corpses under her light while Sandro and Penny made quiet
love in the top bunk.
A blizzard welcomed them to Italy. Breakfast in the dining car
was stale cornetti, (Italian croissant facsimile), strong dark coffee and
bland watery eggs. Menacing black bristles poked through Sandro's
upper lip and chin. Beatrice yawned non stop behind her manicure.
Ula's icy eyes were fixed on the blur outside the steamy window. The
cold metal of the wheels screeched underneath as they slowed before
crossing another bridge floating lost in a swirl of white.
Even the gentle hills of Tuscany, and the wilder ones of
Umbria, were covered in snow, all the way down to the weed covered
Roman aqueducts that flanked the tracks converging into the travertine
monstrosity of Termini station.
Their taxi swerved around the obelisk of Piazza del Popolo to
the Locarno Hotel. Penny would have expected Sandro's flinty faced
dandy of a dad to show off his beautiful mistress along the Via Veneto,
but here he was definitely slumming it. They passed through the
threadbare Art Deco entry and squeezed into a cage elevator of the
same vintage as Max and Maia's and just large enough for signora's
luggage.
Their rooms were lined in padded satin, not musty relics but
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