Gidget Goes to Rome

Frances Lawrence and Jefferson Matthews--better known as Gidget and Moondoggie to their Malibu surfing friends--got pinned before Moondoggie went away to college two years ago. Now 18, Gidget is eventually able to convince her parents, Russ and Dorothy Lawrence, to let her vacation in Rome with her two friends Lucy and Libby, Moondoggie, and his two college friends Judge and Clay, all chaperoned by Judge's Aunt Albertina Blythe, before Gidget heads off to college herself in the fall. Gidget's parents might have reconsidered if they knew the nature of Aunt Albertina, who feigns that chaperoning is hard work--while most of the time she takes off on her own for her own pleasures. Russ isn't totally trusting, despite Gidget wanting to show her independence, as he asks his Italian friend, magazine writer Paolo Cellini, whom he met during the war, to keep an eye on Gidget without letting her know that he asked him to, or that he is a friend of her father's. Paolo is able to fulfill this obligation by pretending to write a story on the goings-on of a typical young American tourist in Rome. Gidget and Moondoggie's fairytale reunion is threatened by what seems to be Moondoggie's attraction to their beautiful young Italian guide Daniela, a college student herself. But Gidget could forget all about Moondoggie as she is swept off her feet by Paolo, not knowing that he is just being his suave Italian self, that he is working in part toward that obligation to her father, and that he is happily married with children.