One Italian Summer(27)

Adam nods. “You know where the real best view of Positano is?”

“I don’t know how you could beat the view this morning,” I say. “Today was pretty great.”

“Be that as it may,” he says, “the best view in Positano is actually from the ocean.”

A bicyclist on the sidewalk almost knocks into me. I jump back out of the way, and a car honks. All the vehicles are tiny, like we’re in a movie.

I’m reminded, when he says this, of something Eric used to say when we lived in New York. How the best view in New York was in Jersey City. The best view in a place is actually a view of the place.

Five years ago, my mother and I went for the weekend to the Bacara in Santa Barbara. It’s a hotel on the coast, with grounds that have great views of the ocean. We got massages and then sat out in big Adirondack chairs and watched the sunset.

“Look at all the colors,” she said. “It’s like the sky is on fire. Burning up the whole day. Nature has so much power if we just pay attention.”

“What’s your favorite place you’ve ever been?” I ask Adam.

“Wherever I’m going next,” he says.

We keep walking until we arrive at a bougainvillea-covered walkway. I remember it from yesterday. It leads down to the church square.

Couples stroll hand in hand as shops continue to open their doors. A few paces down, a young artist has set up a stand. Beside him are colorful landscapes of Positano and Rome and, for some reason, quite a few portraits of cats. Finally, we reach the square with the Church of Santa Maria Assunta standing in the middle, the golden dome high overhead.

“This is one of my favorite places,” Adam says, surveying the structure. He tilts his head back and rests it in the palms of his hands.

“It’s so grand.”

“It was built when the Byzantine icon of the Virgin Mary was brought here on a ship. There’s this legend that the icon was on a boat that was headed east when the ship stopped moving. The sailors heard a voice saying, ‘Put me down! Put me down!’ The captain thought it was a miracle that meant the Virgin statue wanted to be brought to Positano. As he changed course so he was headed for the shore, the boat began to sail again. It was a miracle. Incidentally, ‘posa posa’ means ‘put me down’ or ‘stop there,’ and that’s how the town gets its name.”

“Positano,” I say.

“Indeed. Come here.”

Adam motions me over to his side. He points upward, to the colorful dome. It looks gold from anywhere else, but here I see it’s actually a pattern of yellow, green, and blue tiles.

“So the whole town was made around this one church, this one story,” I say, still gazing at the sun-covered dome.

“Isn’t that how all things begin?” Adam asks me.

I drop my head down, and see that he’s staring at me. I let my eyes, protected now by sunglasses, gaze back at him. I notice the way his shirt clings to him. It outlines his torso, his sweat creating a kind of pointillism on the cotton canvas.

I was so young when I met Eric. I’d never even really had a boyfriend before him, just a series of dates and unanswered texts. He was exactly what I’d been looking for, which is to say, he was the answer to what I think was the broadest, most general question I could have been asking: Who?

At the time, I must have felt that this was right, that he was The One, but looking back, it feels arbitrary, like I’m not sure what criteria I was using to evaluate him, the relationship, any of it. I wanted someone to think I belonged to them, the way I belonged to my family. That’s how I figured I’d know. But now—

What if I got it all wrong? What if the point of marriage wasn’t to belong but instead to feel transported? What if we never got to where we were trying to go because we were so comfortable where we were?

“Where to next?” I ask him. I want to keep moving.

Adam cocks his head to the left. “This way.”

He takes me to the streets in and out of Marina Grande, the area by the water that is filled with shops. Gelaterias are next to small boutiques and stores that sell any number of overpriced Positano souvenirs. Everything seems to be printed with lemons. An irritable woman in her sixties sells all sorts of Positano merchandise. There are small glass bottles filled with sand, ceramic plates printed with tomatoes and vines, handmade gold sandals, and aprons printed with lemon trees. I pick up an apron, fingering it. It’s lovely, bright, and fresh.

Instantly, I’m transported to my parents’ kitchen, chopping onions next to my mother, who is dumping greens from the Brentwood Farmers Market into a wooden bowl. She’s wearing a navy-and-white-striped button-down and jeans, cuffed at the ankles. And over it, her lemon apron.

As if I’d been burned, I stick the apron back. The store manager continues to glare at me.

“You okay?” Adam glances at me from where he’s been leaning in the entryway.

“Fine,” I say. “Yeah. We can go.”

“You don’t want that?” He gestures to the apron.

“No,” I say. “I don’t need it.”

He follows me out the door. “Are you sure? I have cash.”

“Do you want to get a drink?” I ask him.

“Now? It’s barely eleven.”

I take my sunglasses off and give him a pointed stare. “It’s Italy.”