One Italian Summer(24)

The view up here is breathtaking, reminiscent of the one leading into town. The boats on the water, once entirely sketchable, are now tiny white dots on the sea. Here you can see the sweeping wash of blue and the hotels and houses of Positano like watercolor droplets. We are high above it all.

I take a seat on a little stone step. My legs are quaking underneath me, and the sun is now fully birthed, coming into the world today raging and singing light. I no longer feel even the slight remnants of the fog of a hangover. No wonder everyone can drink wine so freely here.

I think about this path. How many people have come and gone along this trail. How many stories, how many steps.

I think about my mother here, all those years ago. I think about her here now. Her long auburn hair, her wide smile, her sundress and sneakers, the gleam of sweat off her suntanned brow. The same person, and yet someone else entirely.

“There you are!” she says, panting. “I practically had to chase you up here!”

She’s real again, in the flesh. All the dewy youth of someone awakening to a new day of nothing but salt water and wine.

I scramble to my feet. “You came here to find me?” I say breathlessly and with so much relief.

She sticks her hands on her hips and leans down, winded. “You passed by my balcony this morning. I waved but you didn’t see me, so I tossed on my sneakers and came up. You owe me a massage, probably.”

I look at her lean torso, her strong legs. “Don’t you do this path every day?” I ask her.

She looks at me like I’m nuts. “Are you kidding? I’ve never been up there. That’s like twelve thousand stairs.” She straightens up, surveying the view. “But I have to say, I am so glad I followed you. This is pretty spectacular.”

I go to stand next to her. I think about a postcard from this place. It probably looked the same a hundred years ago. I hope that will be true a hundred years from now, too.

“Back home in LA we have this hike off Mulholland called TreePeople,” she says. “Have you been?”

I shake my head.

“I like to go sometimes. I’ll bring a sketchbook up. It’s a great place to draw. I haven’t been in too long, though. This just reminded me.”

“I like photography,” I say. “I used to bring a camera with me to Fryman Canyon. That’s the hike my… That’s the hike I like to do.”

“I’ll bet you’re a great photographer.”

“Really?”

She nods. “I can tell you have very good taste. With the exception of that dress from yesterday, of course.”

She smiles; it makes me laugh.

We stand up there, side by side, not speaking.

“Carol,” I say. The word sounds both foreign and familiar. “I have to tell you something.”

She turns to me, and I see the sweat running down her face. Her green eyes flashing in the sun.

I want to tell her that she’s my mother. I want to ask her to dig deep, to see if she can access some other time and place. I want to know if she can peer into the future and see her child swaddled against her chest. I want to know if she can see the two of us in contrasting floral dresses running down the beach in Malibu, me at her heels. I want to know if she can see herself, in our kitchen, plucking my fingers out of the cookie dough. Does she know? How could she possibly not remember?

But of course she doesn’t. Here she’s just a woman out for a summer adventure, and I’m the other American tourist with whom she happened to cross paths.

“Yes?” she says, still looking at me.

“I’m not sure I liked Da Adolfo,” I spit out.

Carol laughs. She squints her face together and shakes her head. “Then I have to tell you something,” she says. “I’m not sure I do, either. But you can’t really beat the scenery.”

“The food was not so amazing,” I say.

“The standards are high here,” she says. “Especially if you’re staying at Poseidon.”

“Where do you go back home?” I ask her. “I mean, in LA. Where do you like to eat?”

She smiles. “I cook a lot,” she says. “I have this very cool apartment on the Eastside. You’ll come over, when we’re back. I make a lot of pasta and fish. The secret to LA is that downtown has the best restaurants. They’re few and far between, but they’re sensational. And Chinatown has my heart.”

I flash on my mother, dim sum splayed out before her, clapping happily as we all sing “Happy Birthday” to her. We haven’t been in ages. Why did we stop going?

“I’ll also never pass up In-N-Out.” She clears her throat. “Shall we?”

We head down the stairs together, side by side. When we get to the landing, I stop and gaze back down over the sea. It’s so much hotter than when we began, and my bottle of water is nearly empty.

“I’ll see you at four?” my mother asks.

“Do you want to have breakfast at my hotel?” If she comes back with me, what will happen?

“I’d love to,” she says. “But I have this project I’m working on.” She looks sheepish when she says it, the first time I’ve seen the emotion on her since I encountered her here.

“What kind?” I ask.

I’m reminded of sitting on floors of showrooms as a young child with my mother. Watching her pick out rugs and fabrics for drapes and furniture for her clients. I’m reminded of playing on the floor of my father’s flagship store, watching my mother arrange dresses on mannequins. I loved seeing her in her element.