One Italian Summer(46)

We’re almost out. I can see the sun begin to crest, straining to meet us. It’s now or never.

And then Adam takes my hand. He takes my palm and presses his palm against it, interlacing his fingers with mine. He keeps it there as we pull back out, into the sunshine.

“Beautiful!” Amelio calls.

“Beautiful,” Adam says, still looking at me.





Chapter Twenty-One


I don’t see Carol the next day, either, and two days later, Adam takes me to Naples. One of his favorite places, he claims, in all of Italy.

“A lot of people don’t love it,” Adam tells me. “Tourists rarely visit. But I think Naples is one of the most beautiful places in the world. Plus, it’s the best pizza you’ll ever be lucky enough to eat.”

“Better than Mozza? We shall see.”

“How can you beat where it all started?” he says.

We get a car from the hotel after breakfast. A convertible that feels straight out of the 1950s. This time, Adam drives. The views out of town are just as stunning as the ones coming into it.

“I think I want to live here forever,” I say.

Adam smiles. “It’s why I keep coming back.”

“I’m not sure that’s a reality for me,” I say.

“It is if you’d want it to be.”

“That’s really what you believe? Anyone could just live on the Amalfi Coast if they want to hard enough?”

“Hey,” Adam says. “Settle. That’s not what I mean. I just mean you could, if you wanted to. We’re not talking about anyone. We’re talking about you.”

“You don’t actually know that,” I say.

Adam turns to look at me. “I guess I’ve got to get to know you better, then. Good thing we have all day.”

When we pull off of the coastal part of the drive, and are about twenty minutes out from Naples, Adam gives me a brief history of the place.

“Naples is a strange city,” he says. “It’s in tatters in some places, absolutely run-down, but there’s also this persevering Mediterranean beauty, almost Grecian. It was the most bombed Italian city in World War Two and has a largely tragic history—a huge cholera epidemic, poverty, crime—but there’s this strength to this place and its people. I find that beauty next to decay is its own kind of stunning. You can really feel it when you’re there.”

“I also heard it’s a town known for its pickpockets,” I say. I remember reading it in a travel guide.

“That too,” Adam says.

We arrive in Naples, and I see what he means—the outskirts look poverty-stricken. As we pull into the city center, things get noisier, busier—drivers peel around one another, ignoring any kind of road rules. It’s so much more chaotic and stressful than where we’ve just come from.

We park near the Duomo, one of more than five hundred basilicas in Naples.

“It’s probably the Italian city that has held on to its Catholic roots the tightest, and the longest,” Adam tells me. “The people here are very religious. They are also very rowdy.”

The streets are busy and gritty. There is more trash than I have seen anywhere in Italy. My journey through Rome was brief, nearly nonexistent, but even so, I know the two cities are nothing alike. I’m struggling to determine what, exactly, Adam loves about the place.

“Come on,” Adam says. “I want to walk a little with you.”

He touches my elbow and turns me down a street. On the corner, a man and a woman are in a heated debate. She gestures with her hands in his face. He grabs them, and I think, for a sliver of time, he might shake her, but then she yanks his face down and they are making out, fast and furious.

“Italy,” Adam says.

“Italy,” I repeat.

“I just realized I don’t even know what you do for work,” Adam says.

“I’m a copywriter,” I say. “I help companies and sometimes individuals say what they need to say. I give the language for their websites, and newsletters, and I’ve worked on a few books. I was in-house somewhere for a while, but I left when my mom got sick.”

“I see,” Adam says. “How long ago was that?”

“A few months. Caring for her was…” I look at two older women carrying plastic bags. The bags look too heavy for them. “My mother was my best friend,” I say.

Adam tucks his hands into his pockets, but he doesn’t say anything.

“She was the most vibrant woman. She just knew everything, you know? Everyone who knew her went to her for advice. She was so good at being human, she just had it all figured out, and I—”

“You come from her,” he says.

“Yeah, but we’re nothing alike.”

Adam glances at me but doesn’t break stride. “I have a hard time believing that’s true. She taught you to be like her, no?”

I think about my mother in my home, bringing over a vintage kilim for our kitchen floor, new throw pillows for our couch, home-cooked meals for our fridge.

Something dawns on me, but I’m not sure how to identify it, what it will mean if I acknowledge it out loud, or even just to myself. And then I do.

“No,” I say. “She didn’t. I was just the recipient.”