One Italian Summer(37)

The boats leave for Capri every hour. Maybe I’ll go. I’m considering what I’d need to do to make that plan happen when I find Nika pacing outside of the hotel.

“Hey,” I say. “Is everything okay?”

“Marco,” she says. “Is an idiot.”

“What happened?”

“He is so stubborn. Tutto questo è così frustrante.”

“Here,” I say. “Let’s go upstairs.”

I lead Nika inside, and we go up the steps of the lobby, taking a seat in a hidden bench in the great room.

“Now tell me what’s going on,” I say once we’re sitting.

“He doesn’t listen. Your friend Adam, yes?”

I feel my stomach drop. Last night. Adam’s hands on my neck and back and…

“Yes,” I say. “Adam?”

“He made an offer to Marco, and Marco will not accept.”

“The hotel,” I say. Of course. “He doesn’t want to sell.”

“He does not understand!” Nika throws her hands in the air. “We need the money. It has been a hard season, this last year, and the hotel needs money. I didn’t think he was serious, but the offer is real. It’s very real.”

“Selling is a big deal,” I say. “It’s turning over a part of your history. I understand that your family doesn’t want to do that.”

Nika shakes her head. “What good is history if it cannot live?”

I don’t say anything, and she continues. “We don’t have the money to do the upkeep that is required, and if we let the hotel falter, our customers will not return. It doesn’t matter if it is ours if we cannot keep our doors open. The history of this hotel is the people—the customers who come back every year and the staff that has been with us for decades. Katy, if we close, what does it matter who owns? If we are not open, what is history?”

“I didn’t know it was that serious,” I say. “The hotel’s finances, I mean.”

“Marco won’t admit it. He thinks we will get the money by some sort of miracle. He does not understand that this is the miracle, this is what we’ve been hoping for. You know the story about God and the man on the roof?”

“No,” I admit. We were not a particularly religious household, more traditional in our approach. I went to Jewish day school, and then secular after that. We went to temple on the High Holidays, but rarely others. My mother liked Shabbat, but we only lit candles probably half the time. “Religion is in the family,” my father used to say.

Nika exhales. “A man is on his roof because there is a hurricane and his house is flooding. It’s very serious, and the water level keeps rising. He is calling out and calling out for God to help him. Please, God, do not let me drown! Please save me, God!

“A man on a raft floats by and asks if the man needs help. Let me help you, he says. I have a raft and it’s big enough for two! But the man on the roof says no thank you, he trusts God. God is coming, he tells the man on the raft. And God alone will save me. I have faith.

“Then a woman on a boat comes paddling by. She asks the same thing—Signore, can I help you? Come get in my boat and we will row together to safety. But again the man on the roof says no. God is coming. I have faith.

“Last a helicopter is overhead. The pilot calls down—I will throw down a rope. Grab on, and we will bring you to safety. The water is getting higher and higher. It is almost to the top of the house. But the man does not lose his faith. No, he says. God is coming.

“Finally, the water reaches the man, and he begins to drown. He calls out for God as the water floods his lungs. He dies, and arrives at God’s door, and when he gets there, he asks God: God, why did you forsake me? I trusted you! You abandoned me, your son! And God looks at him and says: My son, I never abandoned you. I sent a raft, a boat, and a helicopter. It was you who turned your back on me.”

Finished with the story, Nika looks at me.

“Ah,” I say. “So Adam is God in this situation?”

“He is at least a man with a raft,” Nika says. She shakes her head and laughs. “It sounds ridiculous. I’m sorry for telling you all that.”

“It doesn’t,” I say. “I understand. It’s hard when someone you love won’t see another perspective.”

“Yes,” she says. “I am afraid his stubbornness will cost us our business.”

My mother and I didn’t fight much, but when we did, it was usually about small things—clothes, food, the question of whether to take the freeway or side streets. On the big stuff, she was insistent; it wasn’t worth going up against her, and I didn’t want to. My mother had a very clear idea about the right way to do things, and most of the time, I was happy she had the answers. I listened to her; I trusted her. I didn’t know the best way to live my life, so if she did, I figured following what she knew made sense. This was a problem for Eric. Not at the beginning of our relationship. In the beginning, I think we both liked it. We were so young, it was nice to have someone telling us which airline deal to take and which apartment to rent and what couch to buy and where to order chicken from. But as time went on, Eric would sometimes accuse me of heeding her advice to our own—Eric’s and mine—detriment.