One Italian Summer(28)

“Hey, listen, I’m in. You’re the one who wanted me to play tour guide. I was trying to get as much mileage in as possible.”

“And you did a great job. Now I’d like some wine.”

He grins at me. “As you wish. I know a great spot.”

I follow him up the street onto Via Cristoforo Colombo. After a minute or two, we stop in front of a restaurant on the left-hand side. It’s two stories, with a terrace on the second level overlooking the street and ocean.

Adam shakes hands with the ma?tre d’. He points across the street to where there are two tables, right on the street, that look like they’re literally hanging over the ocean. “Possible?” he asks.

The man nods. “Naturalmente.”

We cross, and Adam pulls out my chair for me.

“We’re in the middle of the street,” I say to Adam.

“Pretty great, right?”

I look behind him, to where Positano’s colored town rises out of the ocean.

“This must be spectacular at night.”

Adam nods. “It is.” He glances at me. There’s a suggestion there, but I leave it dangling. A waiter appears with bread, water, and a carafe of white wine, snipping the moment. Adam pours for us.

“Very good,” I say. I take a big gulp. “What is this?”

“Their house white,” he says. “I order it every time I come here.” He wipes some sweat from his forehead and lifts his glass to me. “To new friends,” he says. He holds my gaze for just a beat longer.

I meet his glass with a clink.

“Do you ever wonder how people used to find this place? Before there were travel brochures or even word of mouth.”

“I think there was always word of mouth.”

“You know what I mean.” I put my elbows on the table and lean forward. “So, okay, that ship. What must it have felt like to step onto this shore for the first time? I can’t imagine that people built this place. It feels like it’s always been, I don’t know, undiscoverable. Like it’s always just existed exactly as it is today.”

Adam sits back, thoughtful. He takes a sip of wine.

“Sometimes, I guess,” he says. “I feel that about Italy in general. All this living history. Different eras and experiences, joy and suffering stacked up on top of each other like sheets of paper.”

“Sheets of paper. That’s the perfect way to describe it.”

I think of one of the final scenes in The Thomas Crown Affair, the remake with Rene Russo and Pierce Brosnan. Thomas Crown has stolen a painting from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, replacing it with a forgery. As the plot crescendos, the museum infiltrated and the sprinklers on, the forgery begins to disintegrate, revealing that the original painting has been there all along, just underneath it. The same canvas.

One thing on top of another on top of another.

“How often are you at home?” I ask Adam. “I have a vision of you in an apartment with gray walls and gray furniture. Maybe a red headboard.”

He raises an eyebrow at me. “That’s specific.”

“Masculine and minimalist,” I say.

Adam laughs. “I’m not a pack rat, you’ve got that right. But I like Navajo pottery. Not sure where that fits into the equation.”

“Really?”

“Really,” he says. “I bought my first piece on a trip with my mom to Santa Fe, and I’ve been collecting ever since.”

I imagine Adam in a room filled with colorful vases. It’s hard to picture.

“But in answer to your question,” he says, “I am not home that often.” He rolls his neck from side to side. “What about you?” he asks. “What does your home look like?”

I think about the gingham wallpaper in the bathroom, the wicker furniture, the mid-century dresser.

“I don’t know,” I say. “It looks like me, I guess. It looks normal.”

Adam clears his throat. “You don’t look normal.” He holds my gaze for a beat and then looks back down into the marina.

“Positano was really just a modest fishing village,” he says. “Although, legend has it that the town was created by Poseidon himself, god of the sea.”

“It seems like there are a lot of legends to this place.”

Adam leans forward. He tips his wine to me. “Many people believe that Positano was and still is full of very real magic.”

“Magic,” I repeat. “Do you believe that?”

Adam’s face hovers even closer. If he wanted to, he could lift his hand from where it rests on the table and cup my chin with it. It would take no more than a heartbeat, an instant, the space of a millisecond.

“How could I not right now.”





Chapter Fourteen


Adam drops me off at half past two at the hotel. “You sure you don’t want to have dinner tonight?”

“I told you I’m going to that restaurant.”

“With your friend, right.” He tilts his head to the side. His face is a little red at his cheeks and nose—the first hints of too much sun today.

We’re standing in the lobby. The front desk is vacant. From upstairs, the sounds of guests at the pool trickle down.

“What?” I ask. “What’s that look?”