One Italian Summer(39)

I nod. “Right.”

“Can I ask you something?” Adam says.

“Sure.”

“Last night,” he starts.

“I thought we were not going to make this awkward. Italy and all.”

Adam pauses. “Am I making this awkward?”

I look up at him. His face is relaxed, his body casual. “No?” I admit.

“No. So, last night.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that.”

“Which part?”

“I don’t know. Kissing you? I shouldn’t have done that.”

He nods. “I guess it occurred to me that I didn’t ask you what you want.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you’ve told me you’re married and that you’re maybe separating and that you’re heartbroken, because you’ve lost your mother.”

He says the last part delicately, tenderly, and I wince.

“I guess I just thought I should ask what you want. Whether you want your marriage to work out, rather. Whether you want to go home to him.”

This wasn’t what I expected him to say. I expected him to apologize for kissing me, maybe. Or to accuse me of bailing. Now I don’t know how to answer.

“Because, the thing is, yeah, we’re in Italy. Shit happens, like I said. This isn’t about me. I don’t even know you, and you don’t know me.”

“Right.” I feel a pang of something. Disappointment, maybe. Interesting.

“But you could,” he says.

“I could know you.”

He nods. “You could.”

I take an unsteady breath. “I don’t know.”

“Oh, I think you do.” Adam’s gaze sits heavy on mine. “Like I said, it’s not about me. But it would be a shame if you kept doing something only because you’ve done it before.”

I think about the routine of my life back home. The coffeepot, the mail, the market. The same four shows on the DVR.

What got you here won’t get you there.

“What are you doing tonight?” I ask Adam.

“Having dinner with you,” he says.





Chapter Eighteen


Adam and I meet in the lobby at seven-thirty. It’s still sunny out, but a bit cooler than the day. I chose a long Poupette silk slip dress in bright blue with an off-the-shoulder top. I put on a chunky rose quartz and topaz necklace, no earrings, then sweep my hair up into a topknot. Gold sandals and my Clare V. clutch—one of my mother’s favorite local LA brands.

“You look beautiful,” Adam says when he sees me.

He’s wearing a white linen shirt, khaki shorts, and a beaded mala necklace.

“You too,” I say. “I mean, you look nice.”

“Hey,” he tells me. “I’ll take beautiful. Nothing wrong with beautiful.”

We leave the hotel, and I’m starting to make a left, down into town, when Adam cocks his head across the street. There is a car waiting, with a driver standing by outside.

“For us?” I ask.

Adam nods. “We’re going to broaden our horizons,” he says. “After you.”

The driver holds the door open, and I slip into the back of an old-time town car. Adam gets in the other side next to me.

“Where are we going?” I ask him.

“Il San Pietro,” he says. “One of the most stunning places in the world.”

I remember the name of this place. It was on our itinerary, day 6: Drinks at San Pietro.

“It’s a famous hotel,” Adam continues. “It’s hard to explain, better to just see it.”

We drive down past town and then back out, along the coast, and in no more than ten minutes, we are pulling off to the right side of the road.

“Here we are,” the driver says.

“Grazie, Lorenzo,” Adam says.

We walk down a small path, and then we are at the mouth of Il San Pietro, a sprawling estate built entirely into the rock of the seaside.

The lobby is open and white, and green ivy climbs the walls and saunters across swaths of the ceiling. Huge glass windows lead out to wraparound terraces that hang over the sea. Farther out, there is nothing but ocean.

“This is beyond,” I say to Adam.

He smiles. “Come on.”

Out on the veranda I see the tiers of the hotel—with what looks like millions of steps down to the ocean. Below us, hundreds of feet, there are tennis courts and a beach club—bright orange chairs sit perkily on the rocks of the shore. There is a 180-degree view of the Mediterranean Sea.

“This looks like a fairy tale,” I tell Adam.

A waiter appears, handing us each a glass of ice-cold champagne. “Buonasera,” he says. “Welcome.”

“Thank you.”

“Let’s walk a bit before dinner,” Adam says.

All around the main hub of the hotel are ivy-lined walkways. They weave in and out between rooms and levels, taking us down closer to the ocean and back up, toward the main restaurant and lobby.

“Have you ever stayed here?” I ask Adam.

“Once,” he says. “It’s extremely romantic”—he takes a sip of champagne and I look away, down at the water—“but I love the ease and convenience of the Poseidon. Here, you are really in another world.”