 
### Skylark

### By Patricia Ryan

An international romance novel set in Rome and New York during the turbulent 1960's. It deals with love thrown away and then regretted amid social and political upheaval across two continents.
DESCRIPTION

Skylark:

1) A small bird famous for the song it utters as it soars toward the sky.

2) To make sport of, tease, a merry prank.

\--------------------------

Sally, a vibrant young New Yorker, is living and working in Rome, Italy, when she becomes somewhat reluctantly involved with the elegant and married Paolo.

Paolo, who is much older than Sally, is separated from his wife in no-divorce Italy and caring for his terminally ill son, Tonino.

In the course of their relationship, Sally is spurned by the young son, physically attacked by Paolo's estranged wife, and threatened by the Italian police.

From afar she is forced to witness through Italian eyes all the crucial events taking place in America, including the assassination of President Kennedy, the Viet Nam war, and a growing feminism which has not yet reached Italy.

Feeling that she must go home, she abruptly leaves Paolo and returns to New York.

But in the empty life of the city, she realizes that she did not leave Rome to return America, but to avoid a closer relationship with Paolo, one that seemed to come with insurmountable and unwanted obstacles.

When she finally realizes this, she faces her immature selfishness and tries to return to Paolo, but it is too late.

Tonino has died and although Paolo wants her back, he refuses to let Sally into his life again for reasons only revealed a decade later, at the end of the novel.

#####
Skylark

C. Copyright, Patricia Ryan, New York City, 2014

Smashwords Edition

This ebook is licensed and free to you for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be sold by anyone except the author. If you would like to share this book with another person, please advise them that they can find their free copy on any major ebook retailer. The author appreciates your enjoyment of this work and any recommendation you would like to make to other readers. Thank you.

### CONTENTS

Prologue

Skylark

Epilogue

Coda
SKYLARK

A Novel by

PATRICIA RYAN

PROLOGUE

A thin, pale child holding tightly to his father's big hand greeted Sally when she opened the door. Tonino looked as if even a gentle breeze might blow him away. Standing next to his tanned, healthy father, Tonino seemed as if he were already disappearing. His tiny, sallow face held two enormous brown eyes, which were almost as sad as his father's.

Sally wanted to love him immediately, and would have hugged him "hello," except that from out of that little face shot the most hostile back-off look she had ever seen. Naturally, Sally quickly checked her instincts. She politely led both of them to the sunny terrace where she had a couple of new comic books waiting, and asked Tonino if he also wanted some ice cream. Paolo smiled appreciatively at Sally.

"No, thank you," Tonino muttered, not looking at her. He picked up the comic books and showed them to his father. "I already have this one," he said in disgust.

Sally made coffee for herself and Paolo, and tried again to tempt Tonino with ice cream.

This time he just shook his head. Sally told him about the resident lizard. Tonino looked around, didn't see the prehistoric creature, and lost interest.
CHAPTER ONE

"I won't lie for you anymore," Rosalie said as Sally passed by the switchboard.

"From now on, I'm putting his calls through and you can handle the problem yourself."

Sally knew Rosalie was right. It wasn't fair to involve her, or anyone else in the office with this. But how could she help it? It was their fault he was calling her.

Even though Paolo had worked at the firm before she arrived and then left for a prestigious government job, she heard about him constantly. Everyone in the office seemed to miss him.

"You just have to meet Paolo," they all told her.

And on a bright, Roman spring day, when they were meeting him for lunch , they invited her along.

Sally tried hard to fit in with her mostly all-male colleagues, so in spite of the much heralded unsavory side of Paolo's reputation, she agreed to go.

She didn't forget that it took her almost a year after she had come to Rome to find this job. A wonderful, exciting, difficult, terrible, confusing, exhilarating year. A year of off and on work and living in other people's houses. A year of soaking up the special Roman light, of learning the melodic language, of trying to meet new people. A year of antiquity, history, and often piercing loneliness.

She felt she had earned the right now to feel good about her new successes which included a lovely apartment with a large terrace, and this steady job in an Italian public relations firm. Even if the boss, Count Corollo, was a haughty, moody, difficult man who seemed to lose as many clients as he gained.

Her mood was high that her co-workers were finally including her, but her expectations were low in regard to the mythical Paolo. Even though they over praised his quick mind and quirky sense of humor, Sally saw that what they really appreciated most was his legendary relationships with women. They were so proud of his notorious "ladies' man" reputation, it was as if his conquests somehow helped the whole team.

### CHAPTER TWO

Everything they say about Rome in springtime is true.

The sun hits the red tile roofs and amber walls of the old houses in a way that makes them seem as if they had just been washed. Everything gleams.

The fountains all over the city sing louder. Their waters rise higher with new bursts of enthusiasm. The sky is so blue and close to the ground that it seemed you could just spread your arms and fall into its cool, clear pool.

Giddy is a good word for springtime in Rome.

Naturally they would eat outdoors, in an enclosed garden behind a small restaurant that was tucked away in one of Rome's many ancient alleyways. One of those neighborhood places that only the Romans know about.

Sally was aware that she was getting special attention. Besides Rosalie, she was the only woman in the office. But because she was American, she seemed to get away with a lot of things Italian woman generally could not.

And she fascinated the Italians as much as they fascinated her.

"What do Americans think about this," they would ask her, referring to some world event. Or, "Is it true that Americans don't like this? Why do Americans do that?"

Her answer was always the same, and it frustrated them no end. "Which Americans do you mean?" she would say. Or, "America is a big country. Some Americans do that and some Americans don't."

For lunch she was very American.

She decided to wear her bright red suit. Not a choice a Roman woman would make, preferring a more subdued, understated look.

Everyone from the office went to lunch that day except Count Corollo, and Rosalie who had to stay behind to answer the phones.

The entrance to the restaurant was misleading. It had a small doorway that might have been to any house in that tiny, cobblestone road. Once inside, the restaurant was small, dark, and unappealing except for the powerful and pungent smell of fresh coffee being made in a hissing machine at the front of the bar.

They led her through to the back which opened onto a delightful garden where sunlight and shade were dappled through an arbor of grape vines and honeysuckle. Tables, set around on a patio of unglazed ceramic tile, were of rough wood with butcher's paper used as tablecloths. But there were real cloth napkins, and in the middle of each was an undulating carafe of local Roman wine.

Paolo was at a long table set for five at the far corner . When he saw them arrive, he stood up and extended his arms.

"Ciao, ragazzi," Paolo said warmly.

"Ciao, Paolo," the firm's photographer replied, as he wrapped his arms around him. Except for Sally, they all did the same in turn. Sally loved the way Italian men greeted each other: embracing, patting one another's backs vigorously, as though each encounter were a special victory of human connection.

Finally, they introduced Sally, and Paolo smiled appreciatively as he kissed her on both cheeks, the way Italians always do.

Paolo was not at all what she expected. For one thing he was noticeably older than the others, and very graceful in his well-cut dark suit. He had a long face under a full head of rich salt and pepper hair. His big heavy lidded eyes were light brown and, in spite of his amiable, cheerful manner, they were sad.

It was predictable that he would sit next to her.

He took special care of Sally through the long afternoon lunch, calling waiters for everything she needed, insisting she taste new and unusual foods, all of which were delicious. Paolo also directed most of the general conversation toward her, even though everyone else wanted to talk about themselves.

She was actually a little embarrassed by all his well-crafted and elegant attention, especially since everyone already knew how he was with women. It might seem she was just one more of the same.

After lunch Paolo said, "I would like to see you again." He had managed to separate her from the group as they walked toward the main square where they would get a taxi to the office.

Sally kept her eyes down. "Well, it may be difficult. I'm having some friends visit from New York soon and we'll be very busy."

"I'll call you at the office," Paolo said as she hurriedly left him to catch up with the others, who were waiting with the taxi door open.

Well, at least he didn't kiss my hand, she thought with relief.

### CHAPTER THREE

"I won't lie for you again," Rosalie had warned her.

Sally had badgered Rosalie into refusing Paolo's calls on her behalf several times already, so she was sure by now he would not call again. She didn't think about it anymore. Between the new project for a client, and getting organized for Ruth's visit, she was beginning to feel a little frazzled and put upon.

Her project was not going very well. Electric razors were making impressive inroads with consumers, so a manufacturer of old fashioned, wet razor blades hired Count Corollo's agency to come up with ways to make soaping up a man's face and setting a sharp instrument to it seem glamorous.

Sally's job was to convince a film director---of which there were many in cinematic-centered Rome--to include a scene in which a well-known movie star would shave with their client's non-electric razor. To do this she had to locate not only a willing director but also a film in which such a scene would seem logical.

Through some of the firm's contacts, she made several calls to Cinecitta', the large movie studio outside of Rome where most of the Italian films, famous around the world, were made. But she didn't make much progress. The necessary pay-off she could offer a director was pitifully small. In addition, many filmmakers considered themselves "artists" and could not be approached with such a project.

Finally, she found the director of a low budget vampire film that had a cult Hollywood has-been as its star and the director would take a case of scotch for his trouble. Sally was elated. Even her moody, high-strung boss seemed pleased enough.

But she knew if something can go wrong, it will. And it did. Because the film was off schedule, they shot the scene crucial to Sally at a time when she wasn't on the set.

And by mistake they used a competitor's razor blade. Sally didn't even notice this when they finally saw a preview of the nearly completed film. However, her boss did.

Re-shooting the scene was out of the question. But she would be in big trouble if she could not convince the director to at least cut the close-ups of the competitor's product. If so, she wondered whether or not she would have to come up with another case of scotch.

### CHAPTER FOUR

While she waited for the director to return her call--if he ever would--Sally thought that maybe her best friend's visit from New York wasn't coming at a good time, even though she had been full of anticipation to see Ruth again: it had been so long. Sally wanted to really share with her this famous, beautiful, complex, ancient, and mysterious city that she had grown to know well and love better. But for some reason, lately she was tired and disheartened. And in spite of her love for Rome, at the moment she was a little fed up with it. Perhaps it was the Count's rude and haughty treatment of his staff that was beginning to smolder in her democratic soul. Rome was beginning to smolder as well, since the Roman spring had turned to the infamous Roman summer, the heat of which, as the poets say, only mad dogs and the English go out in.

What she needed was not to be in this office that was stifling hot, in spite of the thick stone walls and cool marble floors. She needed not to be waiting for a low-level director of a low-budget movie to return her calls so she could keep her by now difficult, but much valued, job.

What Sally needed was the ocean.

For days now she found herself longing for the ocean. Land-locked Rome had kept her from her innate right, as a New Yorker born in a city of islands on the Atlantic, to be near the sea. She was in fact getting desperate for the ocean. Not for the many lakes in the hills surrounding Rome. Not for the sinuous and historic Tiber River that the Caesars had crossed. No, the ocean.

The phone rang. At last! she said to herself, quickly picking up the director's imagined call in relief.

"It's too hot to stay in Rome today ," Paolo said without even introducing himself. "Let's take the car and drive somewhere cool for lunch."

"Can we drive to the beach," she asked.

"With pleasure," he replied.

### CHAPTER FIVE

She knew the drive to the far-away beach would be long but she didn't care. She felt like a freed prisoner. And even if she had second thoughts about going anywhere with Paolo, she would keep her eyes firmly on her ultimate goal. The ocean.

Perhaps it was her elated mood, but the ride out to the beach with Paolo was, contrary to her expectations, quite pleasant. Whatever else this man was or was not, he certainly had a great deal of class. He neither infringed upon her, nor ignored her. He was full of intelligent questions on her reasons for coming to Rome and on her life here, and on her plans for the future. They discussed the foibles of their arrogant once-boss-in-common, and they gossiped about their mutually-known friends. Paolo spoke about his job as a press officer for one of the Italian ministries, and of the looming political crisis that might topple the Italian government. Again. A fact which, like most other Italians, he seemingly took in stride. She also learned that he was 15 years her senior.

Well, it was clear then that they probably wouldn't have much in common or want to get involved. Besides she was mostly intrigued by Georgio, the energetic young event coordinator with the high cheek bones with whom she worked. But Georgio always seemed to be out of town on the firm's business usually in some developing country. Once, from one of his trips, he brought back for her a long, very unusual African necklace of hammered silver loops, which she loved. He also brought a small but pretty bracelet for Rosalie. Rosalie said he always brought something back.

At one time Georgio had suggested that he take Sally out to one of the seven hills around the city where they could sail on the lake, eat by the shore and see the Castle used by the Pope on vacation. Like all Romans, Georgio had an enormous pride in his city and could not resist making his mark by showing a stranger all the personal nooks and crannies that made up Rome as he saw it.

Sally had learned a lot about Rome because of this local personality trait. Almost every Roman she met had made it a private mission to reveal the city to her. And even after a year, they had still only scratched the surface.

She was looking forward to the outing with Georgio. But he hadn't been specific, and by now she knew she was in a city where many plans never come off, another strange aspect of local pride.

In any case, there was still a certain relief in now knowing that the difference in Paolo's age might be used as a wedge if she needed it to get out of any unwanted encounter with him. An encounter his reputation made sure would come about.

Ironically, she also mused, that it must be because he was older that everything he did seemed to have such sure-footed wisdom.

### CHAPTER SIX

At last they were at Ostia Antica and she felt the sharp salt air rip into her psychic fatigue. The swooshing of the waves against the beach--this beach where Cleopatra is said to have landed and where Caesar returned from conquering the known world--gave a comforting eternal rhythm that made her more tranquil. The expanse of shoreline was a welcome relief from the confines of a torturous old city. The seagull's shrieks were the songs of her childhood. She hadn't realized how much she missed that raucous sound.

Even in their business clothes, Paolo and Sally walked a great distance along the beach. At some point Sally didn't want to talk anymore and was pleased that Paolo picked up her mood and indulged her. He, too, was luxuriously breathing the fresh cool air, as he carried his suit jacket over his shoulder on one finger.

Finally they came upon a casual seafood cafe with outdoor tables overlooking the sea. Paolo said he was not familiar with the place. "But if we don't like the food," he pointed out, "we can always eat the view." She laughed, but she could sense that a strange and unwanted melancholy was starting to descend on her. Maybe the sea was making her homesick.

On the restaurant's terrace, Sally ordered pasta with clams, fresh tomatoes and basil while Paolo had grilled fish. Along with the crisp white wine and hearty, crusty bread, the meal revived her spirits.

By the time the tiny, sweet, fresh strawberries arrived, most of the other patrons had gone. As she noticed this, a tall stocky man walked slowly by, a young toddler up on his shoulders. The man carried his cherubic son like precious cargo, while the totally trusting baby boy gripped his father happily by the nose.

"I really love to see Italian men with their children," Sally said, "They seem to make such good fathers."

"I'm a good father," Paolo said.

### CHAPTER SEVEN

They drove hurriedly back to the city laughing as each tried to think up a more fantastic, elaborate or lurid excuse for being so late to their separate jobs.

"Next week I'm going to take you to my special place for the best artichokes in the world," Paolo said. "Do you like artichokes?"

"I don't know how to eat them," Sally confessed.

"I'll show you how."

"It sounds very nice, but as I told you, some friends are coming from New York."

"When are they coming?"

"It's a she--my best friend, actually--in about a week."

"That's plenty of time for artichokes."

"I don't think so. Between that and the problems at the office, I'm really quite busy."

### CHAPTER EIGHT

"I want you to meet my dead grandfather on Saturday morning," Paolo said when she picked up the phone.

"What...!!??" she laughed.

"You'll see," he said.

"I can't. Really. I have too much to do."

"How can you say 'no' to my dead grandfather," Paolo said. "He wants to meet you."

### CHAPTER NINE

"I don't understand," Sally said as they walked up the long steps of the Etruscan museum. "You said your grandfather was dead? Then, how can I meet him here, and how could he possibly want to see me?"

No doubt about it, Sally was intrigued. It was a good line for sure, because it worked. Smooth as silk, this Paolo, she thought.

But what really made her go was that it was Saturday morning. Saturday mornings were for friends, and after some of the difficulties of her first year in Rome, having many different friends became important to her.

Besides, it was a good chance to go to the Etruscan Museum which was a "must-see" on her long list. The more of Rome she saw, the longer her list grew, and by now the mysterious Etruscans had made it to the top.

Almost nothing was left of this sophisticated civilization after it was wiped out by the warrior ancestors of present day Romans. But while the early Romans may have killed off the Etruscan civilization, they absorbed many of the people. Sally was often startled to see modern Roman faces that were exact images of Etruscan statues many thousands of years old.

After Sally and Paolo had marveled for about an hour at the strange household items, and tiny bronze body parts that the Etruscans sculpted to show the gods what parts of them was ill, Sally decided to play with Paolo at his own game.

"So, where is this grandfather of yours?" she asked. "Actually, I think that was just a brazen tease."

"Not at all."

"There is no grandfather, is there?"

"Of course there is, and we're going to meet him now."

Paolo led her to a somber, quiet room of stone coffins. On each coffin was a stone

sculpture in the likeness of the person within. Not a death mask, but a life mask: a full-length rendition of this person at his or her living best. Young, strong, smiling, adorned with the riches of the then world. Among these burial monuments, or sarcophagi as they were called, was one unusual one. Paolo led her right to it.

"This is grandpa," he said.

On this coffin were two figures, a man and a woman, lovingly huddled together.

The stone man, who gave off more life than many of the living, was smiling happily. With his arm gently around the woman's soft stone shoulder, it was clear he was content in death because she was there.

"This is grandpa," Paolo said, like many other Romans, assuming himself to be a partial descendant of these ancients. "You can see he believes there are women a man would be happy to be with forever. So I wanted him to meet you."

"Yes," Sally thought again: "Smooth as silk, this Paolo."

### CHAPTER TEN

Afterwards they went for coffee at a small cafe in the park.

"Well, now I know you have a 'grandfather'," Sally stated. "And from what you said the other day, I assume you also have a child. Are you married?"

"No.

Yes.

Not really."

### CHAPTER ELEVEN

Sally loved Ruth. Since they first met when they were eleven, they shared everything. All the questions of the teenage years; all the excitement about their futures; the adventure of going away to school, of finding jobs as scared beginners, and a one-room apartment in New York City, where together they explored the theater, ballet, museums, concerts; split a budget, the laundry, food shopping.

They had something very rare. In addition to being friends, they had the natural rhythm of partners. For Sally, something didn't really happen until she shared it with Ruth. So it was important that Sally be able to reveal Rome to Ruth as spectacularly as Sally herself had come to see it.

But she laughed as she remembered the disaster it had almost been, and the part Ruth unknowingly played in getting her through it.

### CHAPTER TWELVE

Sally came to Italy because she had gotten the opportunity to work aboard a cruise ship which sailed through the glorious Mediterranean, with its last port of call in Naples.

It had been a "pinch-yourself-this-can't-be-real" job. Her simple duties on board were to work with the publicity director, writing news releases about how the prominent passengers were enjoying their trip. She would then send this information and a photo to the passenger's hometown newspaper: "Today in mysterious Morocco, Mr. and Mrs. Jones, of Trenton, New Jersey, disembarked from the luxury liner _ODYSSEY_ , ...... and blah, blah, blah."

Not only did Sally travel first class in order to mingle with the publicity- worthy passengers, but she also went ashore at each port as a trouble shooter. But there never was any trouble, so she traveled liked someone's spoiled and overindulged rich niece. The irony and pleasure of this was not lost on her as she recalled her blue-collar upbringing in an unheated railroad flat in Brooklyn.

When the opportunity for this trip came up, Sally knew no one in Italy. But she did have friends who had friends there, so she thought if she studied the language and saved a little money, she could leave the ship in Naples when it went into dry dock for refurbishing and perhaps spend a month or two exploring all the postcards and posters of Italy that had always made her heart stop. After two weeks at sea and sightseeing, the ship arrived in Naples. Sally got up at dawn to be on the Bridge as they sailed slowly into that horseshoe harbor at sunrise.

"That's Mt. Vesuvius," the First Mate said as the ship's pilot maneuvered the big liner into port. "It buried Pompeii---you can still see some of it in that direction--some 2,000 years ago and it's still active."

"It is?" Sally was surprised. She studied the looming volcano and all the houses clinging to the mountainside. "Why don't they move?" she asked.

"Ha! Do they move from California? Besides, who would move if they could spend their lives looking at that?" He gestured around the bay and Sally got her first glimpse of the twin island jewels rising out of the sparkling sea.

"Oh, how beautiful!"

"Yes, Ischia and Capri have gotten that reaction ever since the Caesars and Emperors of ancient Rome used them as vacation play lands. Now the whole world does."

"And what is that quaint little town over there?"

"That's Sorrento. I bet you thought that was just the name of your neighborhood Italian restaurant."

Sally laughed because it was true. But she vowed to correct that impression by coming back to see it all.

### CHAPTER THIRTEEN

After Sally got through the long wait at Customs on the pier in Naples, she tried to get her suitcases organized to catch the train to Rome. Until this moment, Sally hadn't realized how much luggage she had brought with her. It was one thing to have muscular longshoremen load and unload this mini-household on board a ship as big as a high-rise hotel. It was another to be dragging it all behind her through strange, noisy, and confusing Italian railroad stations. A great anxiety was beginning to overtake Sally. As she made herself as comfortable as possible in the crowded third class train compartment, she realized she was scared. She was even beginning to think she was, if not totally crazy, certainly an enormous fool.

The game was over. Now she was on her own, unprotected. All she had was a few words of Italian, if she could remember any from that course she took in New York on Tuesday nights for a mere six weeks. She had only a small sum of money which would now immediately change her temporary shipboard status as a pampered princess to someone living in the real world, in a country where she didn't yet know what the real world was.

She had no place to stay, except the name of a cheap rooming house in the middle of town where a friend told her one of her students once stayed. She did have the name of two friends of friends, one an American Fulbright scholar, the other an Italian nurse. But at this moment she didn't know if either of them knew she was coming or even cared.

She also had the name of a young Roman who had come to her Italian class in New York. He was the visiting nephew of the teacher and sat in on the lessons to pick up some English before he returned home. He would also join the students later for coffee. They practiced their Italian on him, he tried some English on them and no one understood anyone. They all had a good time, and he gave out his address and phone number in Italy." If you ever come to Rome, call me," he told them.

They all understood that.

Sally made the mistake of wearing a very pretty wide-brimmed black hat on the trip to Rome. She liked it because she thought it made her look like a 1940's movie star. However, on the Rome railroad platform it just made her look like a confused American tourist in a big, strange hat.

She found a porter who piled her luggage onto a large cart and headed for the station exit without being told. She tried to ask him to take her to a taxi, but he just said, "yes, yes" in irritable English and took her to a waiting black car. "Is this a taxi?" she asked the porter. She knew an Italian taxi would not be a New York yellow cab, but she didn't know what one would look like.

"Same price. Same price," the driver said.

She just decided to get on with it and figure out all the problems later. She showed the driver the name and address of the pensione, or small rooming house, that her friend gave her. After a very long ride they came to a building that looked like an apartment house.

Once in the large, old entrance, they found that the rooms were on the fifth floor. She asked the driver to help her upstairs with all her multiple bags of luggage. After they got off the tiny elevator, the driver put her suitcases in the empty waiting room. She paid him and he left.

Sally was not impressed. This entrance was rather seedy and dark, it smelled of old decay, and obviously no one was making an effort to welcome guests.

"Hello," she called a few times. By now she didn't know if she had made a mistake and was in someone's home. Finally a middle-aged woman dressed in black entered. It was clear that she was annoyed and looked at Sally quizzically. Sally's heart fell.

"I'm sorry," Sally said in terrible Italian to the woman, "I am looking for the Pensione della Piazza."

"Si. Si.," said the woman, scowling. "All full up. All full up," she said in obviously memorized English phrases.

"But I wrote to you !" Sally cried in dismay. "I thought I had a reservation!"

"No reservation. No reservation. All full up."

Ordinarily Sally would have pressed, but she immensely disliked this place and wanted to get out immediately, never mind fight to spend the night here. Struggling through a combination of bad Italian and worse English, Sally learned that the best place to find rooms would be at the Tourist Service Center. There they spoke English and would call around for her to the various rooming houses, checking availability, price, and location.

The Center was back at the railroad station.

### CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Sally and her luggage finally got back down to the street. She looked around and saw the magic words: taxi. The black and green car was parked with several others in an area obviously designated for taxis. She managed to signal one and the cheerful driver put all her suitcases in the commodious trunk.

"Stazione Termine-the railroad station," Sally sighed, and settled back for the long ride.

They were there almost immediately and the fare was a fraction of the first price. Sally realized that previously she had literally been "taken for a ride."

Great, Sally thought. Well, let's erase all this and start over again. Not quite. She lugged her luggage back into the station where the indifferent Tourist Center clerk apparently never heard that the customer was always right. But he did manage to help her locate a room nearby that really existed, and was in her price range.

By now it was late and dark and she was extremely tired, hungry, and disappointed. Whatever this place is, I can surely handle one night of it, she thought. I'll get really settled tomorrow. She took another taxi to the little hotel. The taxi was for her bags. It was close enough to the railroad station that she could have walked.

This time the room was at the end of a long corridor. The place had the same smell of decay as the other. She would learn that this smell was common in Rome. Millennia of living had soaked into the thick stone walls and marble floors. And while the sun nearly always shone on the city, it never penetrated into the heart of these musty old buildings.

In the room Sally turned on the dull yellow light. She would also learn that in a city where electrical energy was a highly expensive and precious commodity, the lamps were always dull, and hot water and sometimes elevators had to be paid for separately. But this night the dreariness just made her sad.

Sally opened the shutters to the incredible noise of the street, found her overnight bag among her trunks and suitcases, and put it on the shaky double bed that almost took up the whole room except for a small sink and mirror behind the door.

There was no bathroom. She freshened up a bit and decided to keep her hat on for confidence and made a stop at the communal bathroom down the hall before going out to eat. I'll never take a bath in that tub, Sally vowed.

She asked the woman who showed her the room where she could find a restaurant for dinner. "It's very late and all the restaurants are closed," she was told, "but there is a bar on the corner where you can get a little to eat." Sally was not crazy about the idea of going to a bar, but maybe she could get something and take it back to her room. She soon learned that a "bar" in Rome is a really a kind of fast food stand with sandwiches, pastries, and coffee in addition to wine and liqueurs. This one even had outdoor tables, and several women were there having coffee.

Because of that Sally thought the place must be ok, so she and her hat entered this unfamiliar establishment where most of the patrons inside were men. They actually seemed startled to see her, and more or less stopped what they were doing. I must be imagining this, she thought. I need to eat and sleep.

She went to the sandwich counter but didn't know what to choose, or what the prices meant, or if she had enough Italian cash with her, since most of her money was still in American travelers checks. The men openly stared at her. She was quite uncomfortable, so she hurriedly chose something that looked like a hot dog, asked for a cup of tea and held out her hand like a child with a palm full of money so the cashier could take what she owed. She put the rest away and rushed outside to the tables with her food.

The "hot dog", or whatever it was, was cold and the tea was lukewarm. Here, on her first night in the city where food and coffee were so outrageously wonderful that a whole lifestyle was built around it, she was sitting by the railroad station eating a cold hot dog and drinking tepid tea.

At this hour of the night she noticed that only men were on the street. Except for the women at the cafe whom she was sitting near. The men were very rude, she thought. They would stop and talk to the women without asking, and they even stood in front of her table studying her. It must be the hat, she thought, and finally took it off. When that didn't work, the light dawned.

I don't believe it! she suddenly thought, I'm surrounded by prostitutes!

### CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Two thoughts ran through her mind, but the first was cancelled by the second.

I'm terribly uneasy, was the first. But then she thought, No, on the contrary, given the circumstances, these men are not threatening at all. They have been fairly gracious about not pushing themselves on me even though I look like I'm deliberately here to attract their attention.

But Sally could tell that all the subtle cultural signals of this foreign city were going to give her trouble for a while and so she decided she needed a friend, or at least a guide, quickly. She would call that young man who had been in her class. Why not? He gave her his number. She had not planned to use it except for an emergency. Somehow this was all beginning to feel like an emergency.

She went back inside, showed the cashier her money, pointed to the phone and asked "which?" The cashier took a few coins and gave her a token which she looked at blankly. The cashier smiled and pointed to the token.

"Telefono. Telefono," he said.

She dropped this odd coin in the obvious slot in the phone box and dialed the number. A man's voice answered.

"Marco, hi!" she said quickly, "this is Sally from your class in ....."

The voice on the other end kept saying "Pronto. Pronto." louder and louder and then hung up.

"Hmmm. I guess he couldn't hear me," she thought, so she tried again. This time she was much louder.

"Hello," she yelled, "this is Sally....."

The voice on the other end also loudly cried "Pronto! Pronto!" and hung up again.

Sally redialed and screamed into the phone, "HELLO. THIS IS SALLY. DO YOU REMEMBER ME FROM......."

Suddenly one of the men at the bar came up to the phone, smiled at her, and pressed a button. The token slid down, and the person on the other end heard her. She stopped screaming. Marco wasn't there. It was his brother.

Sally wondered if he understood what she said. Would Marco get the message? By now she didn't care. It was a lost cause. She was going to go back to her smelly room to cry in bed.

She was looking forward to a good cry. Her bottom lip was already drooping as she pulled down the covers under that ugly yellow light, hoping against hope that at least the sheets were clean. She snuggled down, waiting for the tears and desperately wanting to tell Ruth what a terrible time she was having.

She really missed Ruth and if Ruth were there at least this would all be a big laugh. The smart, spoiled traveling princess who became a dumb lost waif in the wink of an eye. She pictured how she and Ruth would roar at this absurd turn of events, and instead of crying Sally broke into a belly laugh so deep that indeed tears did come to her eyes. She thought that this was probably one of the strangest days she had ever spent in her life and when the laughter was over, she fell asleep.

### CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Suddenly there was a loud knocking at the door and Sally awoke with a start. She could tell from the sunlight pushing its way under the dark shutters that it was late morning. There was no room service here so it couldn't be breakfast.

"Oh, they must want me out. Now!" Sally panicked, aware that she knew so little about how things were done here. She also knew she didn't think well before coffee and realized that this was unlikely and even if they did, she would just pay for another day and use the time to get her bearings.

"Signorina. Signorina," the woman called loudly as she continued knocking.

"Yes. Yes. I'm coming, "Sally said.

The old woman in black at the door held the largest, most exhilarating bouquet of deep red roses that Sally had ever seen.

"For you," the woman said as she walked away smiling.

Sally brought the smell of roses into the dingy room. She was dumbfounded. She had been so confused about everything so far, she wasn't even sure this was happening. But she was sure that when she opened the card, she would learn that they were for someone else.

"Welcome to Rome," the card said. "Will pick you up at 11:00am. Marco." Sally felt like a person adrift in the ocean clinging to a piece of wood who suddenly spots a ship on the horizon and knows that the rescue vessel is steaming towards her. A wave of hope spread through her as she hurriedly dressed.

She went to the front room to pay for another day and night, and found that there was a small sunny nook off the parlor where she could get strong coffee with milk, and a roll with butter and jam. It was all amazingly delicious.

Her relief at having made successful contact with Marco was slowly turning to anxiety. It had been so long since she had seen him that she couldn't really remember his face. How little she knew him! She thought that this could turn out to be a terrible day.

But when Marco arrived and greeted her like an old friend, she knew in an instant that she knew him. He was the same, yet different. Going to the car in the bright Roman sunlight, she noticed for the first time how his dark Italian hair shone, and how confidently he walked in his good gray suit. He seemed to take charge of everything.

"I am taking for myself the special privilege of being the first to show you Rome," he said mischievously in broken English. "Be ready for a long and wonderful day!" The little car shifted gears with a bounce as they headed off and immediately got into the start, stop, and jog of traffic that competed for the little space in the narrow streets leading away from the pensione.

"Ma che roba!" Marco cried impatiently.

She knew he was cursing, but it sounded delightful.

Marco had picked up more English in New York than had been apparent to her then, and she had learned more Italian than she realized. They were conversing well enough about the Manhattan she left behind and the Rome she was about to see. At the wheel of the bouncy little car, once out of traffic, Marco was sweet, smart, and funny. She remembered him as being rather unsure and passive in New York, not really very interesting. After her own last 24 hours in a totally foreign place she understood why, and forgave him.

It quickly became apparent that Rome was the one place even Hollywood with its spectacular epics and romantic fantasies could not truly capture. To Sally on that bright day, Rome was more magical than the movies, more colorful than Technicolor.

She had never seen light like this before. The city looked bathed in honey, and it changed the color of everything. It made white marble and stone turn amber and peach.

"These colors make everything seem so....happy!" Sally told Marco.

"Even here, happiness is just an illusion," he smiled.

In this special Roman light her make-up looked different. It was clear the cosmetics Sally used for the dreary, northeastern sky of New York were too garish and overdone for this mellow climate. She made a quick mental note to use a lighter touch from now on. But she was too busy catching her breath to worry about this for very long.

Marco was taking her on a peek-a-boo tour, and she felt as though she were opening a series of boxes, each with its own unique and precious gift. First, a winding narrow lane where houses from another time crowded together to make cool, dark shadows, and then suddenly, like a slide show, click! surprise! a brilliant plaza of sky, light and fountains. Fountains that spun water with what seemed to be the storied exuberance of the Roman personality and the sparkle of their lives.

Sally marveled at the buildings; none more than about seven stories high. So, except in the curvy, narrow lanes, there was always plenty of sky. Sally was aware that she noticed sky more than most people because as a New Yorker, she hardly ever saw it.

And coming from New York, where it seems they tear a building down every ten years and then start over again, she just could not grasp that some of the places she was looking at were over 2,000 years old. Or 1,000. Or even 700, 500. All of western history was written here, from building to building, each a setting for a different way of life. She laughed as she told Marco: "I'm beginning to think I'm on the gigantic set for 100 different costume movies."

"Well, then you can also picture ancient Romans riding their chariots through these same streets," Marco said. "Which is why modern Romans can't get their automobiles through them!" he yelled, as he vigorously honked the car in front of him. In spite of the high drama that apparently went with driving in Rome, Marco continued to take her down ancient, Medieval, or Renaissance streets to eventually burst upon the gurgling wall of the famous Fontana di Trevi. Or the vast Piazza del Popolo at the foot of Rome's largest park. Past chic outdoor cafes where Romans watched everything, and everyone, from behind their ever-present sunglasses. Or around the oval Piazza Navona, shaped like the race track it once was, and where now baroque statues were holding up the sky over fountains that sprayed mists of water into the wind.

After several hours, it was almost too much for Sally. She finally told Marco that since she had many more months to see Rome, she needed to stop now because she was becoming overwhelmed.

She asked Marco: "Are Romans all crazy? Don't they know people can die from beauty like this!"

### CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Marco turned out to be a friend in Rome.

The person who one day would climb over the roof of her apartment house, down to her terrace, enter her locked flat though the patio doors and set free the huge black bird which had crashed through an open window and cawed, flapped, and screamed at her in every room of the house, no matter where she huddled in panic and despair.

Sally knew she could never fully duplicate for Ruth the experience Marco had given her of seeing Rome for the first time. But she wanted to do her best to approximate for her the sheer joy of being surprised by beauty, endlessly.

### CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

True to her word, Rosalie now put through all of Paolo's phone calls, and Sally took them. Even though she still spelled his last name wrong in her appointment book.

"How is our friend, the Count, treating you these days?" he asked her.

"Not so well. I wasn't able to get the producer to cut that scene in the film," she sighed. "We haven't lost the account. Yet. But Corollo is hardly talking to me. And he is giving me absolutely no work to do."

"You need a different job," Paolo said, speaking with the certainty of having already taken that path himself.

"I know," Sally agreed. "But it's almost impossible to find another job. It took me a year to get this one. And now is a bad time to even think about it. I guess I've been in Rome too long; I don't seem to be able to solve problems as quickly as I used to." She heard her voice rising.

"I'm even having trouble trying to figure out a simple thing like the best way to get Ruth in from the airport on Sunday."

"That's not a problem," he said. "We'll drive out and pick her up."

### CHAPTER NINETEEN

Paolo's presence made meeting Ruth at the airport even more exciting. Now it seemed like an outing, a party. As it should.

She told herself it was just the pleasure of having no responsibility, and the comfort of going by car instead of paying what she couldn't afford for a taxi. Or struggling with the uncertain Italian buses.

When they got to the airline arrivals terminal, Paolo held back as Sally spotted Ruth and ran to her, calling out in joy. They hugged and kissed and laughed and told each other that they looked wonderful and were so very happy to be together again.

"I have a treat," Sally said. "A friend brought me out to pick you up with his car. We enter the city like Caesar--in luxury! Or at least sitting down, which is more than I can say for the bus."

"A 'friend' ?" Ruth asked slyly. "You bad girl, you didn't write to me about a 'friend'."

"No, no," Sally said very quickly, "he really is just a friend. He's been very nice to me. He used to work in my office, but he has a notorious reputation as a lady's man and I'm certainly not going to get involved in that. Besides, he's older than we are, has a child, and is separated from his wife, which he will always be, since there is no divorce in Italy. And I really like the architect I wrote to you about, but he's always out of town. So don't think there is anything going on here, I can't help just being nice to him because he's very attentive and helpful, but mostly because, like everyone else I've met, Americans intrigue him ..... maybe one day he'll take us to some quaint old towns outside of Rome, or......Oh, there he is over there, by the baggage counter, the tall one with the sort of speckled gray and black hair."

Ruth's eyes found the stately Paolo among the crowd.

"Very nice!!," she exclaimed to Sally.

### CHAPTER TWENTY

For Sally, Ruth's visit meant two equally important things. She would finally get to share this strange, overseas adventure with her best friend. And Sally was eager to inhale New York from Ruth.

Even after all the years together, Sally and Ruth never ran out of things to say to each other, which was all the more amazing since they often both talked at once.

"Take it easy, Sally," Ruth laughed. "I'll be here for a week."

Sally still had to go to the office everyday, but since Romans were off in the afternoons, worked a few hours in the evenings, and ate very late, she managed to spend a lot of time with Ruth. And with Sally working, Ruth could enjoy her special pleasure of wandering through Rome's endless museums and churches, as many as she liked for as long as she liked. It was an entirely different experience staying with someone who lived in a city, rather than just visiting it.

Unlike New Yorkers, Romans did not buy their food in the supermarkets, but instead went everyday to a series of shops to pick up fresh food for the meals they were about to eat. They went to a bread store for bread, and a cheese store for cheese, separate shops for coffee, pasta, and meat, and an open market for fruits and vegetables. However, they could buy wine at the delicatessen, where they also got soap, olive oil, and other miscellaneous household items.

Sally did not enjoy this part of living in Rome. It was too much work if you were working. Domestic life in Rome was set up for being domestic. But this was not a problem for Romans since few women worked, and in this class-bound culture, many had servants.

However, with Ruth, Sally enjoyed this shopping immensely. They would use these trips to wander the age-old allyways, looking into courtyards, those hidden treasures of Roman housing with their gardens, fountains, and even remnants of ancient ruins. They would come upon clothing stores in unlikely places and walk away with something so Italian it wouldn't go with anything else they wore. Where ever they wandered and what ever they bought, they always came home with bouquets of colorful, fresh flowers for the apartment.

Sally had never gotten used to the big Italian meal in the middle of the day, and she and Ruth usually skipped it, taking something light as an excuse to linger at an outdoor cafe, drinking cappuccino and eating lemon ice cream. And where Sally would make Ruth tell her about the streets of New York. Apparently they had gotten busier, more crowded, and nosier than ever. Buildings were going up and coming down everywhere. Ruth also brought Sally up-to-date on their friends, all the parties, her job, and America's general state of mind.

Ruth and Sally discussed how popular the Kennedys were, the uproar over Jackie's clothes, how the Cuban Missile Crisis really scared everyone more than anything since the attack on Pearl Harbor. How the March on Washington would clearly change the country, and how there was controversy about a few soldiers being sent to a place called Viet Nam.

"But they're not there to fight, just to advise," Ruth informed her

### CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

"So tell me about Paolo," Ruth asked Sally as they packed. Sally was taking a few days off so she and Ruth could spend a long weekend on the famous Isle of Capri, off the coast of Naples.

"I must see Capri!" Ruth had told her when she arrived, "It's always been a dream of mine."

"Yes, let's go," Sally had answered immediately. "I saw Capri from the ship in Naples harbor and I always wanted to go back. It looked so beautiful. And while we're there, let's go to Pompeii too?"

"Wonderful!" Ruth said. They were very excited about this trip. But it had its sad side as Ruth would be leaving as soon as they got back. During Ruth's visit, Paolo had been very careful to give Sally enough time with her.

He had seen the look of slight dismay when he suggested he take them both down to Naples for the boat to Capri. "That's very sweet, but not necessary," Sally told him, putting her hand gently on his arm. "Ruth is looking forward to the train ride. Italian trains are so different from ours, and always an adventure. It's a chance for her to be among the people and not just another tourist."

"OK," Paolo said. "But then let me pick you up at the boat on the way home."

"That's so much trouble," Sally said. "Why, you'd have to drive nearly three hours down and then three hours back. No, I couldn't let you do that." She was genuinely concerned for the inconvenience it would cause him.

"That's up to me, don't you think?" Paolo told her, a bit peevishly. "Tell me when the boat arrives in Naples, and if I can do it, maybe I will. It would be fun for me. I could spend the day in Naples. I haven't been there in a long time, and it's always exciting compared to sleepy Rome."

"'Sleepy' Rome!" Sally protested.

"Well, compared to Naples...after all, Rome is a government town," Paolo reminded her, "Besides I'd have you with me for three hours on the way back."

### CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

"There's not much more to tell you about Paolo than what you already know," Sally replied to Ruth.

"I'm not so sure about that," Ruth said. "He's handsome, charming, smart, funny, obviously kind. And very classy."

"Yes. And, believe me, I'm suspicious of all those virtues." Sally said.

"He seems quite taken with you," Ruth answered. "Why are you giving him such a hard time?"

"Oh, I don't know. I think I'm worried about being just another innocent American falling into the clutches of an infamous Italian lover. You know, he's apparently such a flirt that he even has a reputation among Italians! Now, that's hard to do."

"If he really is a lady-killer, he can't be enjoying it very much. His eyes always seem so sad," Ruth said. "Besides he doesn't seem to be treating you with anything but courtesy, as far as I can see."

"I think that's part of his game plan. He probably sees me as a challenge: 'See here, everybody: Lady-killer tames Wild American.'"

"Suppose you're wrong? I think you're afraid."

"Of what!"

"Afraid you'll really get involved with him."

"Don't be ridiculous," Sally scoffed. "It's just that I don't want to get seriously involved with anyone here. I won't be in Rome forever. Of course, I'm as willing as the next person to be enchanted by a romance. But not with him. From what I've heard about him, I just don't want to give him the satisfaction."

"Is that your real reason...?" Ruth continued to ask.

"Well, there is still the little fact that he is legally married," Sally added," and strange as it may seem, in this day and age, divorce is still prohibited in Italy."

"But you don't even want to date him. Certainly, you don't want to marry him, do you?!"

"Of course I don't want to marry him. I just don't like the idea that I would never have a choice about it. With him or anyone else."

"Well, at least it's not like an affair with an American married man," Ruth said, "who can get divorced and won't."

"I know. I know," Sally answered. "And I do believe his marriage is really over. But you know, Italians are strange about divorce. In ancient Rome you could get divorced just by breaking the stone tablets the marriage contract was written on. Years after that you weren't allowed to get divorced unless you poisoned the children, committed adultery, or had a false set of keys made.

Now, with no divorce in Italy, Italians either live new lives outside of marriage, as Paolo does, or they kill their spouses."

"Divorce, Italian Style!!" they both yelled in unison.

"But still," Sally said, "as far as I'm concerned there is nothing romantic between Paolo and me."

"And as far as he's concerned?"

"You know, my dear "Sally said to Ruth, "the wonderful thing about Italian men is that they know how to be friends."

Ruth guffawed.

"No," it's true," Sally protested. "Some of my best friends here are Italian men. Oh, I know it's because I'm a foreigner, and free from the restrictions that many Italian women face. "With me, men get to have the company of a woman at times when traditionally they wouldn't have. They seem to like that. So they make no attempt to turn it into something more. Actually, I believe they are more interested in my being an American than a woman!"

Ruth laughed again, clicked closed the locks on her suitcase and put it by the door.

"So laugh," Sally said, "but they treat me like some kind of American Oracle. And they never stop asking me questions. Especially about politics. And even their questions show they know more about American politics than I do. Sometimes I feel like I'm being interviewed."

"You love it."

"Yes, I do," Sally smiled mischievously, and put her suitcase by the door next to Ruth's, in readiness.

### CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

Paolo was right. Naples was more exciting than Rome. That is if you like noise, chaos, and crowds. "Hey, this is like being back in New York," Sally laughed.

"Not exactly," Ruth said as she stared up at the laundry hanging everywhere. Over balconies, and strung across every street, making the city a canopy of sheets, tablecloths, and underwear. They had decided that first they would grab a taxi to the nearby ruins of Pompeii for a couple of hours and then come back to catch the boat to Capri in the late afternoon. Since they had no idea what to expect at Pompeii they thought it would be wise to have an early lunch in Naples.

They saw a sign: PIZZA

"Ruth, look. Pizza! I know you won't believe this but it's not so usual to get pizza in Italy, even though this is where it all started.."

"You're kidding!"

"No, honestly. Let's go here. I haven't had pizza in such a long time."

Sally and Ruth dug into the familiar wedges of crust, cheese and tomato with gusto. "Mmmmmmm," Sally said, as a strand of cheese stretched from her mouth. "Now this is really like being in New York." They enjoyed the irony.

Italy was full of the ruins of previous civilizations, but none were as amazing and chilling as those of Pompeii. As almost every school child knew, Mt. Vesuvius, the active volcano that overlooks the Bay of Naples, erupted so violently 2,000 years ago that the whole town of Pompeii was totally destroyed. Destroyed and preserved at the same time. That was Pompeii's special attraction. The eruption was catastrophic, but so swift that while it toppled and buried the town, it also literally "froze" some of the homes, animals, and people just as they were under an enormous amount of volcanic ash.

When Ruth and Sally arrived at the clearly defined entrance to Pompeii, they were astonished to see how big the ruins were. They were expecting that only a patch of the ancient civilization might have remained, but instead they encountered the perimeters of nearly an entire town with its many streets, cross streets and plazas still intact. They found themselves walking on the same stones as the once thriving Pompeiians did in 63 A.D.

It was empty, hot, and eerie. The blazing sun bounced mercilessly off the bleached rubble.

Trees and bushes had grown between the outlines of houses. It could have been any suburban community of side-by-side homes with their front steps and backyards. Except at first glance most of the houses were gone. Occasionally, there was a marble doorway standing alone. Or half a wall.

Soon, however, they realized that there was much more here than first appeared to the eye. They discovered an ancient bath house where the mosaic tiles of teal green peacocks, brick red hearts, and stars of gold were still vibrant. They were astonished by the clear and colorful frescos painted on the old walls that provided windows through which life at that time could be seen and understood.

As always, food played a great part. Green fruit and water bottles. Eggs, game birds, and fish. Silver jugs and dishes with lace-like handles. Huge ceramic barrels of local wine. "Not much has changed in a couple of thousand years," Sally joked with Ruth.

It was clear that Pompeii had once been rich in color, culture, comfort and pleasure. The surprise eruption had been a sudden blow to an unsuspecting population enjoying its varied daily life. Unlike other ruins, Pompeii did not make you guess about who once lived here. The true forms of people, cats and dogs were preserved intact.

The one that especially moved Sally was a young woman, curled up in a fetal position with a permanent look of horror on her face. Each time someone saw that woman, the destruction of Pompeii was now, and not at some other time. Ruth shuddered. "I sure hope she had a happy life up to this point," she said.

"What is the difference between a happy or unhappy life once it is over?" Sally asked.

"You're not going to get philosophical on me now, are you," Ruth scolded. "It's too hot."

Sally used to drive the easy-going Ruth crazy with her late night discussions on the best way to have an intense life, to live to the hilt before time runs out. "How does one live?" Sally used to ask rhetorically, just as Ruth's eyes were closing. "How does one live?" Sally would insist. "If it is so important to squeeze the most out of a minute, what is the best way? Working? Playing? Loving? Dancing? Praying? Swimming? Sunny days? Rainy days? South? North? All at once? None of the above?" Sally would get overwhelmed by the choices.

Ruth would sleepily tell her that she was glad she didn't have to pick just one. And then she was out like a light.

But Sally believed that your choices gave you the kind of life you eventually would lead.

Sally often wished that the good lives--the well-lived lives with luck and love and health and charity--could be saved and collected somewhere in the universe. She wished there was some kind of cosmic shellac that could be sprayed over our great moments, so they could be permanently exhibited in some metaphysical place, displayed as eternal reminders of what has been and can be.

Obviously, this nearly 2,000 year old woman from Pompeii had one of her moments preserved and exhibited. But it wasn't quite what Sally had in mind.

### CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

They both welcomed the cool hydrofoil ride across the Bay of Naples as it took them from the death of Pompeii to the life of Capri. As they sailed closer to the island, they could see the nearby pink cliffs of the town of Sorrento rise straight up from the sea.

"I can understand why they sing about coming back," Ruth said as they went by.

"Maybe on your next trip, we'll come back," Sally smiled.

"Do you intend to stay in Italy that long!?" Ruth asked in dismay.

"I'm hoping you'll be back that soon, "Sally responded affectionately.

Capri was waiting for them. The picture-book town square that fronted right on the water glistened in the sunlight. They were greeted by rows of small fishing boats, outdoor cafes, old stucco houses, narrow winding streets that climbed mysteriously into the steep rocky crags, and the most spectacular view of blue sky and water on all sides. From this distance they could see across the 18 miles to Naples with Mt. Vesuvius looming like a sleeping cat before it perhaps leaped up once again suddenly and swiftly.

They expected crowds on this small, five mile island with its two little villages. But it was quiet for the moment. So they luxuriated at a cafe overlooking the tiny harbor in the late afternoon light.

"Why is everything they say about Italy, that I find too good to be true, really true?" Sally asked Ruth.

"No wonder you won't come home," Ruth said under the same spell. At that moment Sally felt she never would return to the States. Italy was becoming more and more natural to her.

All of a sudden she had a flash of Paolo in her mind's eye. She felt as though they were half expecting him to amble up to them, walking his long-legged, confident walk. He'd be wearing a crisp light blue cotton shirt with short sleeves and his healthy brown arms would invite stroking. A hint of his elegant chest would be seen at the open neck, and his custom-fitted summer trousers would pick up the slight bounce of life that ran up his thighs from his knees.

Wow, Sally thought once she had shaken the illusion, where did that come from? Wherever it came from, for a short time it left her uncomfortable and a little dissatisfied in paradise.

### CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

Ruth and Sally couldn't believe their luck. Sight unseen they had reserved a room at a simple inexpensive inn. No matter what they wound up with, they reasoned, they'd be out of their room all day anyway. Instead, they were located in a low, white stucco pensione with a private balcony enclosed in white latticework, from which they could see the sea.

"Well, we won't have to be in a hurry to go out for breakfast!" Ruth exclaimed.

Together they had three breathtaking days on the Isle of Capri. They climbed the steep hills to stand over the sea and breathe the swirling air that caressed their faces. They walked the steps through town, following crooked lanes to rows of shorefront houses built practically under rock, as narrow slices of water foamed almost to their front steps.

They swam in the clear blue water off the pebbled beaches. They hired a horse and carriage to take them to the other side of the island, to the old palaces, vacation wonderlands even in ancient times.

A fisherman guide took them in his boat to the famous Blue Grotto, a high, wide cave entered from the sea under the rock of Capri itself. As the small boat came into the cave a miraculous transformation took place. The sound of the wind, birds, and boat motor stopped. It had the feeling of entering an empty cathedral from a busy, noisy street. There was an echo if someone spoke. They stopped speaking.

The waves lapped softly at the cave's entrance. Sally felt as if she had passed from a secret chamber into a dream. The walls of the cave were----blue! Of course, blue. But not water blue or heaven blue, but surrealistic blue, phosphorescent blue, liquid blue, bright blue, gem blue. Unreal blue.

This strange effect came from sunlight indirectly reflected against rocks that had a high blue content in them. And the color changed, with every wave and every shift in the clouds and sun. This kaleidoscope of other-worldly blue was enough to make a person delirious. Suddenly, Paolo with his long legs and warm smile flashed by Sally again.

As they began the trip back, Ruth told Sally, "That was a cosmic experience."

"No wonder they call this the 'Island of Dreams'," Sally said, slightly shaken.

### CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

They did something special for dinner on their last night. They decided to stroll up and down the steep narrow back streets of town, off the beaten tourist path and stop at the restaurant that had the most Italians in it.

At night Capri had the flavor of an oriental bazaar. It did not need to have a lot of people for it to feel crowded. But it was a good crowded. A party type of crowded.

Finally, they found a simple family trattoria that catered to what were obviously local people. Everyone smiled at Ruth and Sally as they came in. The women with benevolence, the men with a twinkle. A teenage waiter made a flustered fuss taking them to a little table by a corner window. They were enjoying the attention.

As they sat waiting for their home-made pasta with fish from the surrounding sea, they munched on hot, crusty bread and started their first carafe of clear, refreshing local wine. Ruth got serious.

"I've been trying to talk to you about something for the past week, Sally," Ruth said. "I'm worried about you. You were supposed to be in Italy for a couple of months and now it's over a year. Aren't you letting your opportunities in New York go by?"

"Opportunities? You mean work?"

"Well, yes, work. You told me how hard it was to get and keep a job here. Especially since technically you're not allowed to work. But other things too. All your friends. Your family. Lots of changes are going on."

"I know. My Mom wrote and said they were finally moving to the country. Can you believe it, after 23 years in the same place! I can't wait to see the new house."

"See. There's that. And, well, frankly, New York is the hub of the world. Everything that's happening is happening there."

"Yes. That's true. I miss everything. Everyone."

"Well, then why are you still here? I love Italy too, but it seems to me after you've seen one ancient ruin, you've seen them all. Italy celebrates the past. America, New York, go forward." Ruth paused. "I wish you'd come home. There is such a rush of excitement in the city now."

Sally was about to speak when the waiter put two mouth-watering bowls of steaming pasta in front of them. With a flourish, he ground fresh pepper and then fresh cheese over the succulent mounds. It was as if he had waited all his life to be able to do this for them. Sally joked with Ruth: "What? Go home and give up all this?!" They laughed and the waiter smiled. Whatever they had said seemed to be alright with him.

"You know, Ruth," Sally said, no longer teasing, "I have been ready to go home many times. I was ready when I couldn't find a decent place to live and was staying in sublet apartments and rented rooms. I was ready when the money ran out and I couldn't find a job. I was ready each time I realized that after all is said and done, without family and lifelong friends like you, I am really alone. But then something would happen. I'd find more and more friends, or get work here and there. But that wasn't it. It was that all the streets had become second nature to me, that I began to understand how it was to really live here day to day. The people are so tolerant of human foibles. Even mine. Here, I feel forgiven." Sally said.

"Forgiven for what?"

"For whatever I lack. It doesn't seem to matter. The contradictions we all have are woven into the Italian culture. They accept the good and the bad. As a result, somehow you feel as if the 'whole' you is OK."

"In that case, I think I'll move here myself," Ruth laughed.

"Oh, you would love it! It's the great weather. And the life in the open air. It's so communal, you always feel part of something without having to try too hard. As though it was your right to belong to the human race. And knowing you, I know you'd love the men. Their culture makes it natural for them to openly express their feelings."

"Well, that alone could be a good reason to stay!" Ruth said.

"But don't let me mislead you," Sally continued. "I said 'express' their feelings; I didn't say their feelings last."

Ruth could see that she was not going to get anywhere with Sally tonight on the subject of leaving Italy. She knew Sally had a tendency to be a little rigid. When she got set on one of her ideas, Sally found it hard to let go.

"Besides," Sally continued, trying still further to make her case to Ruth, "It has gotten so that I love the language in my mouth. The way it feels. The sounds it makes. I sometimes think if I couldn't speak Italian every day it would be like losing part of my body. But the real thing is that not only can I speak like an Italian, but I've started to think like an Italian!"

Ruth sighed, "You'll get over it."

"I'm sure I will, "Sally said, but didn't mean it.

### CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

The next day they were ready to leave and Sally was surprised that she was eager to go. It had been magnificent. Why did she want to go? What was the big hurry anyway: the faster they got back to Rome, the faster she would lose Ruth.

But her mind hadn't gotten as far as Rome. Would Paolo really be waiting for them in Naples? She was surprised that the imagined sight of him made her start with anticipation. But he probably wouldn't be there since she had clearly discouraged him. And he didn't say that he would be. Suddenly she was disappointed. I should have told him 'yes', she thought.

Sally felt foolish trying to keep her carefully combed hair in place on the open deck of the hydrofoil as the boat hurtled back to the Naples pier. But she would hate to have Paolo see her with her hair standing on end as she got off the boat. If he were even there to see it.

While half of her mind was preparing for a Paolo who may or may not be there, the other half was organizing the familiar procedure to get the train back to Rome.

"Are you tired?" Sally asked Ruth.

"Exhausted," Ruth said. And she was, now that her weeks of hard traveling were almost over.

"So am I," Sally said. "I guess we really had a good time!" They both laughed.

Well, if Paolo weren't there it would be just as well. They were too tired to talk. On the train, they could just close their eyes, or stare out the window in silence. Now she hoped Paolo would not be there. It would be easier.

Sally decided not to worry about it one way or the other, and when the boat docked she and Ruth distractedly joined the pushing crowd of people eager to end a journey. Her two small bags seemed to have grown since they left Capri and she laughed to herself remembering the first time she tried to get to Rome from Naples with all her luggage.

She and Ruth moved forward with the crowd onto the concrete pier and put their bags down while they got their bearing on where to get a taxi to the train.

"There's a taxi stand over there," Sally said.

"But it's empty," Ruth noticed in dismay.

"Yes. Well, one would have to come back to it sooner or later. Keep an eye over there, and I'll see if we can get a cab as someone is let off at the entrance."

"Looks like everyone has the same idea," Ruth said. "When is our train leaving?"

"We have time. Here, watch this," she said, giving Ruth her purse, "I'll go to the gate and...."

Paolo was walking his walk toward them, his hands in his pockets, his hips carried forward on his stately legs. He was smiling and his usually sad eyes seemed happy. When she got the first sight of him, Sally felt as if she would faint. Hit with a ton of bricks is the usual expression.

"Paolo, you came!!" she cried, her face lighting up.

One of the muscles in Paolo's cheek discreetly flickered in response to Sally's first obvious sign of enthusiasm towards him since they had met. He put his hand on her shoulder affectionately.

"Would I not?" he teased. He waved at Ruth. "Hello," he said, picking up the bags she had been watching, "did you have a good time?"

"Very!" Ruth said. She too looked relieved that Paolo was there.

### CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

They headed home in the dark. Ruth fell asleep in the back seat. Paolo and Sally were quiet, partly so they wouldn't wake Ruth, but suddenly it was not necessary for them to talk in order to communicate. Sally studied Paolo's face in the lights from the oncoming cars as if she had never seen it before.

It struck her that it was the face of a total person, and not just of the handsome Italian who had stuck with her even when she was coolly distant from him. That he was someone who, in spite of his flamboyant reputation, in real life seemed to have a lot of emotional common sense. If there were such a thing.

Every once in awhile his eyes would leave the road and catch her looking at him. At first his eyes smiled and so did he. But as Sally's eyes slipped slowly over his wry mouth, his look became more intense. He took her hand. It was the first time they had held hands, and strangely Sally felt it become one hand as she lost the distinction between his warm flesh and hers. It felt so good! When Paolo had to take his hand away to turn the wheel of the car on the winding road, Sally felt cold, alone.

For warmth, she laid her abandoned hand on his thigh. Paolo's whole body gave a small shudder. His mouth got tight, and his eyes quickly pierced hers before he put them back on the road. Sally's legs felt weak even though she was sitting down. Without willing it, her hand now glided to the inside of his thigh. His leg involuntarily let up on the gas pedal and the car wavered. Sally took her hand away. Paolo put it back.

Sally left it there, frozen. What she really wanted to do was to run her lips up and down the side of his strong neck, down into the never seen chest under the crisp light blue summer shirt, down, down....

### CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

"Wake up, sleepyhead," Sally said gently to Ruth as they pulled up in front of the entrance to Sally's apartment house. "We're home."

They gathered themselves together and headed for the small elevator to the 7th floor. Sally prayed that it was working. Elevators seemed to be too complicated a technology for the people who discovered that the earth revolved around the sun. Or maybe they just didn't care. They had been walking up steps for thousands of years and it probably seemed silly to change now. Whatever the reason, elevators in Rome were stuck between floors more often than they went up and down.

Ruth was still groggy and leaned back against the elevator wall, a little bewildered. Paolo was very grave. His brow was furrowed and all his motions were slow and deliberate as he took their bags. Sally was also very subdued. She unlocked the apartment door and turned on the lights.

But they all quickly came to life as they negotiated who would get the bathroom first after the long car ride. Ruth was first, Paolo was last.

"Anyone want coffee?" Sally asked when they had gathered in the living room, "Or tea? Or wine?"

"I'll have coffee," Paolo said.

"Nothing for me, thanks," Ruth said. "Look, do you guys mind if I go to bed? I can't keep my eyes open and I have to catch an early plane tomorrow. Paolo, thank you so much for everything you've done. I probably won't see you again, at least not on this trip. But it was lovely meeting you."

"And it was a pleasure to be with you, too," Paolo said, kissing her goodbye on both cheeks as was the Italian style. "Have a good trip back. Say 'hello' to the Statue of Liberty." Ruth did a thumbs up as she shuffled down the long hall to the bedroom at the far end and closed the door.

Sally was about to go into the kitchen to make coffee for Paolo when he led her back to the couch. Then he re-crossed the room and snapped shut the frosty glass door between the living room and the long hall. He came to the couch and sat next to Sally, looking gravely at her and not moving. Sally was not sure what to do next. Up until now she had made sure that Paolo had not even kissed her, except for the customary "so-long" peck.

Paolo took her hand, the way he had in the car. But this time his eyes never left her face. She was sure he was going to kiss her. Sally felt the surge run from the palm of her hand straight up her arm and into her chest. She too wanted to put her lips on his and instinctively she leaned over, brushed his mouth and pulled slowly away. Paolo still didn't move. He looked at her as though she were humpty dumpty before the fall. One false move and this might never be put back together again. He would wait, if necessary.

After this first brush, Sally's lips felt as if they would jump off her face if they didn't meet his. So they did, and they took her with them. They had barely pressed against his beautifully formed, slightly open mouth, when his arms encircled her as if under water. Slowly, pulling her in towards him. Sally took her lips from Paolo's mouth and heard him sigh. She buried her face in his elegant neck and ran her mouth to the top button on his shirt.

Paolo lifted her chin so that they were face to face again. His round brown eyes had narrowed and were glowing under the thick, dark eyebrows. He put his mouth fully over hers and slipped his hands under her blouse so that she could feel his warm palms on her bare back. He pulled her closer, and closer, and closer until their bodies flowed into the shape of each other's. And when they couldn't get any closer, they slid from the couch to the floor. Sally had passed the point of no return. She couldn't have enough of him fast enough.

As his long body slid down harder onto hers and his wide hands rolled over the silk of her shoulders, Sally thought: I must be crazy. This man is going to break my heart!

### CHAPTER THIRTY

"Let's be faithful," Paolo told Sally.

They were on her large terrace enjoying the sweet, clear Roman night. The lush fragrance of honeysuckle vines left behind by the previous tenant wafted all around them. Stars were everywhere. Sally was surprised at Paolo's sudden statement. At this point, she just assumed they were.

"I'm already 'faithful'," she told Paolo," I just took it for granted that you were too."

Paolo moved to lean defensively against the white stucco wall. Sally never leaned against that wall anymore. In New York there weren't too many large lizards to be seen--other than the human kind--so a few weeks ago when one started crawling down the wall behind her as she lie in the sun on a bright, lazy Saturday morning, she almost leapt out of her skin. As she jumped up, the lizard stopped still except for its round pivoting eyes warily following her.

Sally had only seen these lizards in the movies skittering about on the hot rocks of the Arizona badlands. Now there was one on her wall. She certainly wasn't going to pick it up and throw it away, or flick it with a towel, not knowing where it would fall.

If this lizard was on the wall, Sally reasoned, then the wall was his.

She quickly closed the terrace door so it wouldn't go in the house. Then she moved the wicker lounge away, facing the wall so she could keep an eye on the lizard. Its appearance w

as just one more reminder of how tropical Rome really was. Lizards, palm trees, and the occasional pink house. Eventually Sally got used to the lizard and the lizard got used to Sally. It got so that whenever it would show up, Sally would actually talk to it. This made its eyes turn in a circle, and Sally would laugh. She accepted the lizard; she just didn't lean against the wall.

"I have something to tell you," Paolo said. "I recently saw an old girlfriend."

Ah, Sally thought, here it comes. I knew all this was too good to be true. Well, it's your own fault, she continued to herself. She knew she shouldn't assume anything in a place like this where infidelity is a social sacrament.

"Oh?" All of Sally's muscles were clenched.

Paolo pulled up a chair beside her and took her hand. "Before I met you there was a woman I was involved with...who had a chance to go to England for awhile and wanted to be free. Now she has returned and wants to get back together again."

Sally's heart stopped.

"So I saw her just to see how I would feel."

"You 'saw' her?" Sally asked caustically.

Paolo continued," When I saw her again I realized how much in love with you I am. Sally, I want us to be faithful. I want us to be together for the rest of our lives. I want us to be married."

These sudden one, two, three emotional punches made Sally gasp. First she thought she had lost Paolo entirely, and then in a matter of seconds she realized she could be with him forever. Such extremes all at once!

"But we can't get married," Sally said. "You're not allowed to get a divorce."

"Someday I will. In this new political climate there is growing support to change the law and it will just be a matter of a few years before...."

"A few years?!"

"Sally," Paolo said, "I'm asking you to be with me---only me, and me with you---only you, permanently. How we do that is up to us."

Sally's head swirled. By now, Paolo was her best friend. Her wise teacher. Her smart and funny companion. Her exciting, exhilarating, sweet lover. By now she adored him and couldn't go a day without him. But he was not exactly the boy next door. He was 3,000 miles and 2,000 years away from the metropolis she called home. She had never considered staying in Rome for the rest of her life. Would he consider moving to New York?

"I...that's a big order all at once," Sally stammered. One of the things she was growing to love was the open honesty between them. She felt safe telling him how she really felt. And he wanted to be open with her. This conversation about an old girlfriend was an example. If he had never mentioned it, she would never have known. But, he wanted her to know him.

"You're right. It is a big order," he laughed," and we can't do it all at once, either."

Sally smiled at her own exaggeration. She hesitated and then said, "You know, you have me very confused."

"I do?"

"Yes. I was sure you were going to tell me you were still seeing this woman."

"Why were you sure of that?!"

"Well, as you probably already know....you do have a reputation as a 'ladies man'; everyone in the office told me what a terrible flirt you are!"

Paolo laughed. "They don't know what they're talking about. Silly people!" he said.

"So, it's not true?"

"I get along with women, if that's what they mean."

"I don't think that's what they mean."

"Well, whatever they may mean," Paolo said, "it's very important to me that **we** be faithful to each other, and that we know it, and everyone else knows it too..."

Sally felt better. "You mean you want to go steady," Sally teased.

"'Go steady'....what does this...?"

"It means we love only each other, and then we see where it takes us," Sally explained.

"'Go steady'," he said, shaking his head in amusement. "You Americans have an answer for everything."

\---------

Life with Paolo was like a deeply complicated piece of music with a simple, beautiful melody. But Sally's life was not just with Paolo. It was also with an every day Rome where the ordinary was surrounded by the totally extraordinary.

### CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

Paolo picked up Sally from work in the late afternoon everyday. In all her life no one ever picked her up from anywhere everyday. She was surprised at the way it added a special rhythm to the hum of her life.

She loved it when, for some reason, he'd be slightly late and she'd have a few minutes to wait for him, anticipate him. It was always the hour of the day when the church bells rang loudly, scaring the resting birds into sudden flight against the sky. Their high, screeching cries were a counterpoint to the deep resonance of the bells. One-BOOM; two-BOOM; three-BOOM; Caw-Caw; four-BOOM; five-BOOM; Caw-Caw. Silence.

In that hushed second, a wave of contentment would fill Sally as she leaned against the warm stone building with the sun in her face. She would let out a secret sigh of relief at finally being found after all the years of feeling so lost.

Then she would see the nose of Paolo's car coming down the street toward her, his sad, handsome face smiling at her under the silky waves of salt and pepper hair. Sometimes she felt guilty that he devoted this time to her everyday.

"Paolo," Sally said once, "You don't have to pick me up everyday"

Paolo's face registered a shadow of disappointment.

"Oh? Don't you want me to?" he said.

"Of course," Sally answered, "It's just not necessary---I mean--if you have something else...to do."

"But I look forward to this all day," Paolo told her," I don't want anything else to do."

"OK," Sally smiled. She was thrilled that they were on the same wave length.

After Sally got in the car, they headed off to Nando's cafe for a drink before meeting Paolo's friends for dinner at Laziani's. It wasn't as if they had a real dinner date. No one ever had a real dinner date. Yet almost every night they met friends for dinner. That's the way it was in Rome: you were automatically part of a "a crowd", a group of colleagues, political allies, artists. Life was outdoors, on the streets, in the cafes and restaurants. Members of your unofficial group usually showed up at the same place at the same time as you did. You could count on seeing almost everyone, somewhere, nearly everyday. Yet you never had to make a plan. In fact making a plan in Rome posed some risks. As Sally had learned, early on.

\---------

It was a cool sunny afternoon, and Marco, Elena, and Sally were having coffee at a small table near one of the city's many dancing fountains.

"I love fountains," Sally told them.

"Then let's all go to Villa d'Este," Marco said, "There are hundreds of fountains and acres of gardens. It's the old summer house of Kings in Tivoli outside of Rome."

"Yes! It's wonderful, Sally," Elena said, "It's on a cliff and there is even a waterfall......"

"I'd love to go...," Sally told them.

"Great," Marco said . "Ah... Saturday?...maybe we could take a picnic...maybe we could make a day of it..."

Sally was ready early that Saturday. She had packed fresh hard-crusted rolls, a bunch of grapes, a couple of plump orange-red tomatoes, a thick slice of sweet, semi-soft cheese, and a small, but sinful creme pastry that she couldn't resist on her local shopping tour.

She checked at least three times to see if she could convince herself that a t-shirt and jeans were appropriate attire for an Italian picnic at the sumptuous and grandiose Villa d'Este, or if it would mark her as a tourist. It wasn't, and it would.

So she changed into a flowery blue cotton skirt and a white knit top. She decided to take a sweater too. Then she waited.

She looked out the window.

She waited.

It was mid-morning. By the time Marco and Elena get here, she thought, they would no longer have the whole day. She nibbled a few grapes, and studied the pastry. She waited.

Finally she was worried. She called Marco.

"Ah, Sally," Marco said, obviously glad to hear from her. "How are you?"

"How am I?" Sally responded, puzzled. "I'm waiting for you."

"For me? Why?", he asked.

"Marco, aren't we all going to Villa d'Este today?

"We are? Are we?" Marco said, confused.

"I thought we were," Sally said.

"Why did you think so?"

Sally thought she must be losing her mind. "Didn't you and Elena say we were going for a picnic there on Saturday?" Sally, asked, her voice rising higher than before.

"Ah, sweetheart," Marco said with a sudden flash of enlightenment, "We said Saturday, not this particular Saturday. We just meant 'some' Saturday."

"Oh," she said disappointedly, "I guess I didn't understand."

Sally had her first lesson in Italian Time.

### CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

When Paolo and Sally entered Nando's Bar, Paolo did what he had done since the first evening they went there together. He headed to the jukebox and played the song he said was for her--the one that said over, and over, and over again, "My love, how painful the world would be without you."

Sally did what she always did. She didn't take her eyes off Paolo for a second, and when he came back to her at the bar, they melted into Paolo's round brown ones, as the music came on.

And behind the bar Enrico did what he always did. He came up to them and hummed the tune exaggeratedly with his hand over his heart.

"Curmudgeon," Paolo told him, "Leave us alone; we're in love!"

"Does that mean you do or don't want something to drink?" Enrico asked.

Sally had introduced Paolo to a Bloody Mary without vodka, or a Virgin Mary, as it was called in New York. He liked it, especially if he were going to have wine later on with dinner. But something got lost in the translation.

"I'll have a Tired Virgin," Paolo said.

Sally almost fell over with laughter. She told a confused...but interested...Enrico the correct ingredients for the drink, and then ordered a Compari and soda for herself. Paolo was laughing too, but he wasn't sure why. Their silly mood followed them to Trattoria Laziani, where the usual assortment of regulars would soon join them.

No respectable tourist would be found dead in Laziani's, which is why Sally loved it. You had to be a dyed-in-the-wool, preferably life-long Roman to go to Laziani's. Only then would you know that the dreary room with the fluorescent bulbs, which gave off the same annoying light that you would probably find in prison cells, the stained and broken tiled floors, the old peeling walls, and the uncomfortable, mismatched wooden tables and chairs, would render up cool carafes of perfect local wine, just baked hot crusty bread, and ample portions of homemade pasta with endless varieties of sauce, some of which Sally was actually afraid to eat. As well as garden picked vegetables, and succulent once forgotten fruits whose juices ran down the front of your clothes, if you weren't careful.

Apparently everything ran down the front of Laziani's clothes. His apron had more colors of food on it than Sally had ever seen, as he scurried in and out of the kitchen to be sure that everything was wonderful. When anyone wanted to tease him they would tell him there was too much salt, or too little salt, and then they would pretend to fight over how much there should be. Laziani would win. His confronters would have big gobs of the accused food on their forks ready to go into their mouths as proof of his victory.

Paolo and Sally had become the center of a dining group which would form shortly after they arrived. There would be the portly Gino, whom everyone referred to as "the Cardinal." It was never clear to Sally why. When she asked, Paolo would only say, "Oh, it just seems like that's what we should call him." The "Cardinal's" wife, Lila, seemed a bit askew to Sally. She must have been pretty once, but now she looked worn out, like a good witch. She seemed interesting, but Sally noticed that none of the men would take her seriously, nor let her talk much.

Sally and Lila were the only women regulars in this group, which also consisted of Mario, who actually made a living as a painter of Roman scenes, and Alberto who was a member of one of Italy's smaller, off-beat political parties. Neither Mario nor Alberto ever brought their wives to dinner.

And in her heart Sally knew that for all the constant fuss that Paolo's friends made about her, she herself would not be welcome for a minute without Paolo.

In addition, there was Ottavio, a perpetually out of work lawyer whose brilliance made it hard for him to deal with the petty needs of everyday business, and who, as a result, was living home again with his mother and younger brothers. Once in a while they would also be joined by Giorgio, a familiar actor who was often seen in a Fellini movie, many of which were made around the city.

Paolo was well loved by his friends. In spite of the soft veil of sadness around him, he was essentially very lively and very funny. But most Italians were lively and funny. Paolo offered them something more: he had a kind of bedrock wisdom, a fondness for humanity, and a twinkling wit in spite of his private grief.

And Sally could see that everyone respected him. Paolo's no-nonsense honesty was always served on a platter of irony at no one's expense, or often only at his own.

### CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

It was drizzling slightly that soft autumn evening when Paolo picked up Sally after work.

"Let's take a ride," he said. Sally was always willing. Rome had layers and layer of things she wanted to see and understand.

"There's a little restaurant in the countryside on the old Appian way," Paolo said. "I thought that might be nice for a change."

"The Appian Way! Wonderful," Sally said. "Somehow, I can't get it into my head that it's possible to still have a 2,200 year old highway that you can actually drive on ....even though some roads in New York _feel_ that way. Seriously, it's so hard for me to believe the first major road of all of Western Civilization is still in existence! I mean, it is possible, isn't it? Or did someone just put a pile of old stones there for tourists and call it 'the Appian Way'?"

Paolo laughed. "A very interesting idea. And not a bad one, actually. But, sorry, no. Somehow we Italians would never be able to agree on how or where this little gambit should be done, or who would do it, and so it would never get done at all. It has to be the real thing. It's the only way it could possibly be there."

He's not kidding with his kidding, Sally thought. And he's even half proud of it. How a whole country could take pride in perpetual chaos and seeming incompetence was a mystery to her.

"Don't you ever get tired of all this chaos and incompetence?" Sally asked rudely.

"Ah, tonight we have the American Sally with us," Paolo replied. Then he added, "What's the difference between the American hell, and the Italian hell....?"

"Is this a joke?"

"Sort of."

"OK. I don't know. What's the difference?"

"Well," Paolo began, "this man dies and he goes to hell where the devil greets him to give him a tour. The devil says, 'Listen, you've been a bad guy, but not so bad that you don't get a choice. Come, I'll show you two versions of hell and you can pick the one you want.' So the devil takes this guy to a doorway and says, 'This is the Italian hell.' The man sees a beautiful big room with marble floors, and wonderful paintings on the walls. There is music, and revelry, endless food, and lots of good-looking women. 'Wow,' the man says, 'this one looks terrific. I'll take it.' 'Not so fast,' says the devil, 'I have to warn you that after 12 days and 12 nights of this, we take you out, hang you upside down, and boil you in oil for all eternity.' ' Brrrrrrr...' said the man, 'no thank you. I'd like to see my other choice.' So the devil takes this guy to a doorway and says, 'Ok, now this is the American hell.' The man sees a beautiful big room with marble floors, and wonderful paintings on the walls. There is music, and revelry, endless food, and lots of good-looking women. 'Wow,' the man says, 'this one looks terrific. I'll take this one instead.' 'Not so fast,' says the devil, 'I have to warn you that after 12 days and 12 nights of this, we take you out, hang you upside down, and boil you in oil for all eternity.' 'Well, I don't get it.' says the man, 'What's the difference between the Italian hell and the American hell?' So the devil says, ' Well... in the Italian hell...sometimes they can't find the matches, sometimes they run out of oil, sometimes the ropes break....'"

Yes, that's it, Sally thought. Italy is one of those gloriously maddening places where its vices are also its virtues. Who cares if the government keeps falling, if you can't get anything done, if no one ever shows up on time, if the mail doesn't go through, if the telephones don't work, when I can just enjoy this delicate light, this sweet air, this adorable man.

"Why are you grinning?" Paolo asked.

When they got to the narrow, bumpy old stone road lined with the outstretched branches of the famous "umbrella" pine trees, it was dark and the drizzle had turned to rain. No one else seemed to be driving on the single-lane road. Paolo stopped the car.

"Look," he said. The headlights reflected back small patches of smooth, flat, shiny stones, glazed by the rain. Everything else was very dark and very quiet.

"Let's get out." Paolo said.

"Out? Here? In the middle of the road? What if a car comes?"

"It will see us," Paolo said.

So it would, Sally thought, and got out.

They walked in front of the car's headlights. They didn't speak as they put one foot down on the ancient stones, and then another. They went from stone to stone with the rain ping-ing on their bent heads and shoulders. One stone after another. One at a time. One foot at a time. A thrill ran through Sally. She saw and felt nothing else but flat, old, very old, stones. She thought of all the horse and oxen hooves, and chariot wheels of the Roman Legions on this road that once stretched from Rome to the southern Adriatic seaport of Brindisi; this narrow way that helped the original road builders of the Western world develop a 'global' Roman Empire.

Sally realized she was walking the same road as all the sandled feet of early Christians heading for their secret catacombs, which in fact now surrounded her; over the same stones as the Caesars being hailed; as the toga-clad citizens going to their suburban villas; as the slaves carrying baskets of produce on their heads; as all the saints, sinners, and revolutionaries: Hannibal, Charlemagne, Spartacus, Cleopatra, the Borgheses, Garibaldi, Mussolini, Nazi tanks, Allied jeeps....all of it rose up from the bottoms of the soles of her feet and shaky knees, straight into her stomach with a blow struck with the weight of more than 200 centuries.

She was mesmerized, the way deep sea divers get, losing all connection with the physical present. She was wandering, going to the edge of physical darkness, moving out of the headlights. She would have walked straight down that black road to the edge of the world.

"Sally," Paolo called. "Come on back. Let's go."

She was soaking wet. Paolo was standing with the car door open for her. She got in without saying a word. Even she couldn't tell if her wet face held tears.

This gift, she thought.... blessed man, thank you for this gift.

### CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

It had started out as an ordinary late lunch on the way back from the tiny hill town of Palestrina. The sky was very blue that clear sunny day as they climbed the narrow cobblestone steps of the very old village. The town wound up a terraced hillside, and when Paolo and Sally reached the top they were like eagles overlooking the green valley. It was quiet. Once in a while, a woman would come by carrying laundry in a big basket on her head, or a mule would stroll through, making slow clicking sounds on the street, followed by a toothless farmer. So close to Rome, and yet this could still be centuries ago. I hope they never catch up, Sally thought.

But they had caught up, at least once in their lifetime. The deep, regular line of bullet holes, where the German and American machine guns had run up the white stucco walls of houses caught in the war's countryside fighting, could still be seen.

Before heading back to Rome, they stopped for lunch at a small inn where the outdoor terrace hung over a cliff. They didn't need to speak. They just looked at the beauty around them, breathing it in deeply, thinking their own thoughts. There was no one else there and no one came to wait on them. The only sound was a muted, but audible, radio tuned into a station which played popular songs.

Paolo took Sally's hand. He always held her hand. In the car. Out with friends. In the street. At a cafe table. Paolo stroked Sally's hand, and looked into her eyes so fiercely that she almost turned away. She smiled. He didn't. The radio was playing one of Sally's favorites, the exuberant yet seductive "Quando, Quando, Quando?"--"Tell me when, when, when?" The rhythm was going all through her body and passing from her hand through to Paolo. Sally stopped smiling and returned Paolo's probing look.

A harried woman finally came out of the kitchen to take their order.

"We want a room," Paolo told her.

"You don't want to eat..?" she replied, giving them a look that said what-are-you-doing-messing-up-a-table-if-you-don't-want-to-eat.

"We'd like a room," Paolo said, standing up, "Do you have one free?"

The woman glanced disapprovingly at American Sally in her American yellow dress. "Madame, "Paolo said with Italian male authority," we'll take the key to a room."

He took Sally's hand as they went to the desk where the woman gave Paolo a key, all the while studying Sally. Well, Sally thought, apparently not all of Italy loves lovers.

The room was small and plain, but filled with that extraordinary light that helped make Italian painters among the best in the world. Soft. Slightly peach. A third presence.

Paolo knew exactly what had to be done, as his face began to show all the fervor of Mediterranean male desire set irrevocably aflame.

Sally needed the love they made everyday like air. The one day that Paolo had to be away, she felt as if her flesh were being pulled to where he was. Until she met Paolo, she had never even known she had these feelings in her. Sally often thought, it is amazing how excited he can get me.

Later while Paolo was doing ordinary, daily things, she would look at him and remember. She would think that it was as if he were a magician, making all kinds of things happen for which she was not fully prepared to believe. And she would wonder incredulously: How do you do that?

### CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

Paolo told Sally "Maybe we could set up a time this week for you and Tonino to get together."

"Are you sure it will be ok?" she asked.

Tonino had a lot of difficult things going on in his young little life now, and Paolo--a more doting and protective father than Sally had ever imagined--was treating him with kid gloves. Several times Sally suggested that Tonino join them, but Paolo always said "not yet."

It was Tonino who gave Paolo his sad eyes.

At first Paolo hadn't wanted to discuss the situation with Sally. It wasn't the kind of problem one injects into the early giddiness of courtship. But when it became clear that the exhilaration they felt for each other was from a deep, not shallow, place, Paolo shared more and more of his real life with Sally. In his real life, Paolo had custody of his child from a broken marriage to an erratic and unstable mother. A mother who seemed only too willing to give up the boy and go on with her rather disheveled life. Apparently content to see Tonino one afternoon a week, she sometimes even cancelled that. The break-up of his parents created enormous conflicts for Tonino, and domestic burdens for Paolo.

Paolo never stayed the whole night with Sally. He said it was important that he be home when Tonino woke up, even though the grandmother was always there.

But this wasn't the real issue. Touchy and delicate as it may have been to inject a new woman into the life of a young boy still reeling and confused from so many drastic changes, it was more than that.

Worse than any harm new stress could bring to the quality of Tonino's already shaky life was the fact that Tonino's life itself was at stake.

"So you see," Paolo had explained to Sally when he first told her that the doctors had discovered problems with Tonino's blood--Paolo wouldn't say the word 'leukemia', protesting that it was too soon to make a prognosis--" he is still very weak. When he left the hospital after the last infusion they said it would take time for him to be able to lead a normal life again. Even then we'll have to be careful. Right now, he isn't going out much so we can't make any plans to get together with him.. I never know how he'll be from one day to the next."

Sally's first instinct when she heard about Tonino was to reject all this information. She was not eager to embrace any looming dark clouds in paradise. "But he'll be alright," Sally stated to Paolo as much as asked. Optimistic Sally, ever the good American, believed that you could make anything happen the way you wanted it to.

"We're hoping so," Paolo said. As he talked, his whole face and body showed the heaviness that was usually in his eyes. "But in any case, I also don't want to give him anymore things to handle right now."

Sally had accepted that part of it, and Paolo did such a good job of juggling everybody's needs that Sally never felt the impact of a child--never mind a sick child--on their relationship.

Now all that was about to change.

Tonino was finally strong enough to be up and about. He would probably even go back to school. Paolo told the boy that he wanted him to meet a new friend. That sounded innocent enough.

That is until Tonino actually met Sally. Then, immediately his unsullied radar picked up "Alert! Alert! Replacement for my mother! Replacement for me!"

The encounter was a disaster.

A small, thin, pale child holding tightly to his father's big hand greeted Sally when she opened the door. Tonino looked as if even a gentle breeze might blow him away. Standing next to his tall, tanned, healthy father, Tonino seemed as if he were already disappearing. His tiny, sallow face held two enormous brown eyes, which were almost as sad as his father's.

Sally wanted to love him immediately, and would have hugged him "hello," except that from out of that little face shot the most hostile back-off look she had ever seen. Naturally, Sally quickly checked her instincts. She politely led both of them to the sunny terrace where she had a couple of new comic books waiting for Tonino, and asked him if he wanted some ice cream. Paolo smiled appreciatively at Sally.

"No, thank you," Tonino muttered, not looking at her. He picked up the comic books and showed them to his father. "I already have this one," he said in disgust.

Sally made coffee for herself and Paolo, and tried to tempt Tonino again with ice cream.

This time he just shook his head. Sally tried to tell Tonino about the resident lizard. Tonino looked around, didn't see the prehistoric creature, and lost interest.

After coffee, Paolo decided to go. He had an uncanny sense of pacing, and realized that as much as could be accomplished today was already done. Besides, Tonino, in addition to being sad and hostile, was clearly losing what little energy he had.

"I'll see you later," Paolo said as he and Tonino got on the elevator.

"Bye, Tonino," Sally smiled and waved. "It was good to meet you." The elevator doors closed on Tonino's downcast face.

\---------

"So...that didn't go too well," Sally informed Paolo of the obvious when he returned after giving Tonino an early supper and seeing him to bed.

"You're too impatient," Paolo said. "It was fine. It will take time. And it would help if you wouldn't be jealous."

"JEALOUS!!!!?????"

Well, that did it, Sally thought. First she is browbeaten by a kid, and now she is accused by his father. "Jealous!!!?? Are you crazy!?"

Paolo held his ground, but took her hand. "It's only natural," he assured her.

"But where on earth did you get an idea like that!?" she protested. Sally tried to run the events of the day through her mind as quickly as possible. She had been surprised at the change in Paolo when he was with Tonino. Usually his eyes were always on Sally, he always sat close to her, confided in her, listened to her. But today, he watched only Tonino. He fussed over him, made him comfortable, talked mostly to him. Sally felt extraneous to them both that day.

If she hadn't been jealous before, she was getting jealous now.

"Well, you have to admit," Sally said to Paolo, "neither one of you treated me very well today."

"Sally," Paolo said wearily, "he's the kid. You're supposed to be the adult." A feeling of injustice flashed across Sally's face.

Paolo stroked her hair affectionately. "Come on, it's going to work out. You'll see, with time, we're going to be a family."

### CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

Sally was impressed, as she watched Paolo lovingly take care of Tonino. It gave her another, different, view of him. Still, sometimes it was hard to lose her place as the sole center of Paolo's attention.

Yet when Tonino was not around, Paolo remained riveted to her. So much so that Sally had actually become a little cocky in his love for her. She realized how secure she felt when she laughed the first time he turned to her and said "I don't like you today."

True, it had taken her by surprise, but she also thought it was funny. Maybe it was the "today" part of it that made her realize that he was also saying, "but every other day I do."

"Why don't you like me today?" Sally asked.

"I'm not sure," he said. And then it was over. His hand would touch hers and he would smile.

How wonderful, Sally thought, that he loves me enough to trust telling me this. After all, no one likes anyone, everyday. Not even themselves. But he says it, she thought, knowing it can't break our bond, and by saying it, it goes away. She thought she must be crazy to get such a kick out of his fearless honesty at her expense, but it was this trust in each other that let Sally be patient when Paolo gave most of his attention to Tonino.

Besides, it made her happy to see Paolo's delight and relief as Tonino grew stronger, as his color came back, as he began to be able to walk further, and then finally to run, which now seemed to be what he did most of. And Paolo was even happier as Tonino developed the energy to become fresh and disobedient.

Tonino was still as cool and distant to Sally as he could get away with, and neither Paolo nor Sally forced him to behave otherwise, as long as he was not overtly rude.

"I feel like celebrating," Paolo told Sally.

"Celebrating what?"

"Just because." Paolo said. "Why don't the three of us go away to the country for a few days? It will give us a chance to all be together for awhile."

"Sounds like a great idea to me," Sally said, thinking how nice it would be to at last remain in the same bed with Paolo all night.

### CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

The car was winding its way up the sinuous mountain road at dusk. Sally thought it was beautiful how the tops of the mountains remained in bright sunlight while all the rest was already dark.

"Poppa, I'm cold," Tonino told Paolo.

"Here, put these newspapers over you." Sally said to Tonino, "They're not as good as a blanket but they might help," She turned around in the front seat to tuck the papers around the shivering boy in the back.

"Who would have expected it to get this cold so suddenly," Sally said to Paolo. "If I had known, I certainly would have put a blanket in the car. But it was so hot in the city."

"It's the mountains. It's always much cooler up here," Paolo explained.

"Poppa, I'm still cold."

Sally asked him , "Do you want us to stop and get a sweater out of the trunk?"

"In 10 minutes we're going to stop for the night," Paolo said to Sally. "Tonino," he continued, "Just hold on. It's going to be much better very soon."

Sally took off her summer blouse, which she had been wearing as a small jacket over a skimpy tank top, and gave it to Tonino.

"Maybe you could put my blouse around your neck and shoulders--here like that."

"You'll freeze in that skimpy top," Paolo told her.

"You said we were almost there," Sally answered.

"Yes. Are you still cold?" Paolo asked his young son.

"Only a little," he answered.

"Well, aren't you going to say 'thank you' to Sally," Paolo asked.

"Poppa, can I have some little spaghetti's for dinner," Tonino responded.

\---------

The stone terrace of the rustic resort came right to the edge of a ridge with a spectacular view of the mountains and valley below. A pathway for hikers led from the terrace to the surrounding areas. Sally was enjoying the fresh air from a lounge on the terrace while she waited for Paolo and Tonino, who had gotten up much earlier. They came up the path all glowing from their morning walk.

"Hi guys," she said lazily, "where did you go?"

"We got tired of waiting for you to come down, so we took a walk. We wound up in that field over there, surrounded by a flock of sheep."

"Weren't you afraid?" Sally, the New Yorker, asked.

"No, dear. They're harmless," Paolo laughed. "Remember, they're called 'sheep.'"

"I liked the little lambs, Poppa. Didn't you?" Tonino said.

"Little lambs! You know, I have never even actually seen a real lamb." Sally told Tonino. "Did you get to hold or play with one?" she asked him. Tonino didn't answer her.

"Well, did you play with the lambs?" Paolo repeated to him, scoldingly. Tonino became agitated.

"Where is my bathing suit! You didn't forget my bathing suit again, did you!" Suddenly he bolted off towards the hotel.

"Stop running!" his father called. "You'll fall and hurt yourself--or someone else!"

"Maybe it was not such a good idea to bring me along just now," Sally said.

"We have to do this sometime," Paolo told her.

\---------

The lovely afternoon was perfect for a swim in the large lake that lapped at the hotel's long front lawn. The only problem was that its shoreline was rocky and shallow with visible undergrowth. They decided to row out to the sparkling middle.

"Let's row out past all those weeds so I can swim," Sally told Paolo who automatically took up the oars, and began moving the boat with his firm strong arms.

"I want to swim too," Tonino said to his father.

"You don't know how," Paolo said.

"I'll teach you to swim, "Sally told Tonino.

"Poppa, will you show me how to swim?"

"I don't feel like swimming today," Paolo said.

"Here's a good spot," Sally decided. "It looks like we're far enough away from the weeds." Paolo pulled in the oars and let the boat drift slightly.

"Are you coming in too?" she asked him.

"I don't know. Maybe not."

Sally took off Paolo's large white shirt which she had worn over her dark one piece bathing suit. She put her legs over the side from the end of the wooden bench so she wouldn't tip the boat over, and then leaning forward, she shoved herself in. Her cry of "Yikes!!" was overshadowed by the loud splash she made hitting the water. Paolo laughed and lit a cigarette.

"Poppa, don't smoke a cigarette! Take me in the water!." Tonino cried.

"Go in with Sally," Paolo responded slyly.

Sally shouted from the water to both of them. "Come on in. It's delicious!"

"It looks cold," Paolo said.

"No. Wonderful. Fresh. Feels good."

"Poppa, take me in the water," Tonino pleaded. "I want to learn to swim"

"Sally will teach you to swim. Look at her. She swims better than I do."

Sally shouted to Tonino, "Watch me dive under."

Tonino wanted so badly to go in. He began to cry out of anger and frustration.

"It's no use crying," Paolo said, "I'm not going in the water today. If you want to go in, go ahead with Sally.. It's all up to you, you know."

Sally swam up to the side of the boat where Tonino was sitting. "Come on in. I'm right here," she said.

Tonino told his father, "But I don't know how to swim. You know I don't know how to swim!"

"Well, if I go in it won't be much different than if you go in with Sally. Except you'll learn better."

"Here, look," Sally said to Tonino, "sit on the rim of the boat with your feet over the side, and I'll let you down easy with my hands around your waist."

Tonino continued to badger his father. "You finished the cigarette. Can't you go in now?"

"No. I don't want to go in today. Now either sit here in the boat or go in with Sally."

"What can I do if I sit here?"

"I don't know. You see how Sally can swim. She knows just how to do it."

"Poppa, I want to swim. I want to swim so much! I told you last year how much I want to swim this summer!"

"Tonino, please," Paolo said. "Not today. I'm not going in today."

"Why not!"

"Because I don't like swimming out here. I like to swim near shore. I'm not such a good swimmer, you know."

Sally called to Tonino from the water a few feet away. "I can show you how. I won't go too fast. You don't have to put your head under. Don't worry."

Tonino yelled at Paolo: "You swim! You swim!"

"I know I swim. I said I don't swim well enough to like it this far out."

"Well, let's go near the shore then."

"We can't. It's all weeds." Paolo was beginning to get restless and called out to Sally. "Are you going to be in there much longer? It's getting too hot to sit here. I think we ought to go back."

"Ok," Sally yelled, "just one more swim out to there and then we can go." Sally swam in the direction of the opposite shore. She felt the soft, silky water flow along her body with each stroke. She hated to leave this soothing buoyancy, but she knew she should let everyone get back to the cool hotel.

"Are you ready now?" Paolo asked her as she climbed back into the boat.

"Almost," she said, catching her breath, "and am I hungry!"

Tonino pouted, "Poppa, I don't want to go back."

"Why not? We'll have lunch and you can play ball on the grass."

"I want to go in the water now," he said.

Paolo hesitated. He wanted to give Tonino the chance to go in the water. It was true he had promised him, and he saw how the desire to swim was tormenting the young boy. He asked Tonino, skeptically: "Are you really going to go in?"

"Yes."

"Oh, good!" Sally said, sliding back into the lake. "Here, come down like this."

Tonino asked his father, "Will you watch me?"

"Of course."

Tonino awkwardly put his legs over the side, sat shakily on the rim of the boat and held on for dear life. Torn by his desire to swim, he let Sally instruct him from the water.

"Now just put your arms around me here...no, no...it's alright. I won't go under. I can keep us both up by moving my legs under water...see? Oops! It's all right! I've got you!" she cried as Tonino bravely slipped into the lake. He was shaking with fear as he called to Paolo.

"Look, Poppa! I'm still up!"

"Don't worry," Paolo smiled. "Sally won't let you go under if she says so."

Sally gently told Tonino: "Ok, now lie back. Just back like you were going to sleep. You can feel my hands, can't you, underneath. See how they make a bed in the water. Good. That's good! Now you can do the same thing if you go on your stomach. And then you can use your arms to swim."

Tonino called nervously to Paolo, "Poppa, Poppa, I'm afraid to go on my stomach! Should I go on my stomach?"

"Well, how are you doing so far?"

"Good."

"Then it will be alright on your stomach."

"But I'll get water in my face!"

Sally said, "No, you can keep your head up. I'm going to hold you just still at the very top of the water."

"Poppa, will I get my face wet?"

Paolo grinned, "You don't have to." Tonino decided to do it.

"Oh, that's great! That's great!" Sally said. "Now move this arm like this. And the other like that...See!" Tonino was managing a very rudimentary approximation of a small swim. "That's great!" Sally said.

"Poppa! I'm swimming!"

"Be careful," Paolo told Sally.

"Don't worry," she answered, "I have him tight under here."

After a few minutes it all became too much for the elated Tonino and he and Sally got back in the boat. Paolo dried him vigorously with a towel.

"I was swimming, Poppa!"

"I saw."

"Let me row," Tonino said.

"Ho! You swim and now you want to row!" Paolo said affectionately.

Sally told Tonino, "You're going to be a star athlete."

"Was I good, Poppa? You saw. I was good, wasn't I ?!"

"You certainly were, but I'd better row or the hungry Sally will eat us both up."

"Can I swim tomorrow too, Poppa?"

"Sure," Sally told him.

When Paolo finished drying Tonino, and giving him a little love whack on his small behind, he began to row them all back to shore. "Boy, I'm out of shape! I haven't really rowed a boat since last year. Next time, let's not go out this far."

"It's just the cigarettes," Sally told him, "there's nothing wrong with you that giving up the cigarettes wouldn't help." She asked Tonino, "You're not going to smoke when you grow up, are you Tonino?"

"No, Poppa," he said.

"That's right. You're going to be smarter than I am, "Paolo said.

"He already is," Sally teased.

Tonino involuntarily laughed.

Paolo told Sally, "You'll regret that. But not yet. Right now I just want to rest awhile, let the breeze blow and see if we can drift part of the way to shore."

"Let's go in now," Tonino said. "You said I could play on the grass."

"We are going in. Look how fast we're floating in, "Paolo told him.

"Faster than if your father tried his funny rowing," Sally said.

Tonino laughed again.

Sally relaxed. "It's so nice like this. Quiet. Pretty. It's amazing how the water changes color, depending on where the clouds move."

"Oh," Tonino cried, "look how the sun makes rays down from the clouds. Just like in church!"

"It must mean you're a saint," Paolo said.

Tonino giggled, "Don't be silly, Poppa."

Paolo mimicked him, "Don't be silly, Poppa." Both Tonino and Sally laughed together.

"Whoops!" Paolo suddenly sat up, as they began to approach the shore. "I guess we got here faster than I thought. Give me that oar, will you, Sally. We're getting too close to those rocks."

"Here," she said, "but it's going to be even harder to row now with all these weeds. Can I help in some way, Paolo?"

"Sure. Why don't you get out and push." She and Tonino laughed together again.

Suddenly Tonino bolted up in the boat, standing and pointing. "Look! Poppa, look!" he said excitedly, "Look how you can see to the bottom!"

"For heaven sake, Tonino, sit down!!" his father yelled at him. He sat down quickly, chastened. Sally winked at him and made him smile. Tonino's good spirits returned. He said "When the sun comes out you can see all the stuff and things at the bottom, Poppa ! And sometimes it even looks red........How can it be red under blue water, Poppa?"

Paolo started to explain "Well, when the...."

Suddenly Tonino grabbed Sally by the arm.

"Sally!! Look over here, Sally!! See all the colors! It's beautiful! Quick, Sally! Before it swims away!!"

### CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

"No, you can't come in," Tonino told his father. Instead he allowed only Sally into the secret recesses of his room. Sally slipped into Tonino's inner sanctuary with an exaggerated air of superiority, as Paolo pretended to feel left out. But he didn't feel left out. He loved it when Tonino treated Sally like a pal.

Paolo told Sally he was thrilled about how they were becoming a family, just as he said they would. Paolo called the three of them, "smooth as oil."

Once Sally was in Tonino's room, he would proceed to tell her what they were going to do.

He would take out his stamp collection, or his paint box, depending on his mood. Or sometimes his trucks and set up a whole road-building scenario. Tonino was not a great talker, so Sally couldn't chat with him about just anything. If she wanted to talk, it would have to be about trucks, or stamps, or painting. She preferred painting because it was something they could do together.

But Tonino liked his stamp collection best. At first, Sally's reaction was: Oh, great. I can't think of anything I'm less interested in. But, OK, I'll go along. She felt she was still building a relationship with Tonino and was willing to do whatever was necessary. How surprised she was to see that the stamps were miniature works of art, exquisite renditions of flowers, birds, or landscapes and architecture, all in brilliant colors. Sally became almost as fascinated by them as Tonino was.

She even started pulling American stamps off letters she received from home. Tonino was overjoyed. He didn't get a chance to come across many American stamps on his own.

"Would you like to go to America, Tonino?" Sally asked.

"No."

"Strange," Sally teased. "I thought everyone wanted to go to America."

"Not me," Tonino said, off-handedly.

"Why not?"

He lifted his big brown eyes to make sure she understood. "I like it here."

"I like it here, too," Sally confessed.

Suddenly, Paolo gave three raps on the door and then came in. "Hey, you two, let's go out. It's a beautiful day."

"Where, Poppa?" Tonino said, hoping it would be a suggestion he could say 'no' to, so he could remain in his cozy little world.

"Well, we could go up on the Gianiculo.....they have a little carnival up there with puppets—"

"Wow!" Tonino said, as he sprinted up, "Let's go!"

### CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

Sally loved the Gianiculo, a lush park high on a hill overlooking all of Rome. It was a postcard view. All in one glance, Sally could take in gleaming church domes, warm red tile roofs, narrow, crooked streets, spacious plazas, sparkling fountains, and the long, winding Tiber River.

The mood of the amiable crowd gathered there was quite festive, and Paolo, Tonino, and Sally seemed to skip along with it as they searched out the puppets.

Whenever she was in a crowd of Romans, Sally couldn't get over how beautiful they were. To her, it was a great feast for the eyes. Paolo knew this, and it made him jealous enough to tease her. "You have such bad taste," he whispered in her ear, "you think all Italian men are handsome."

"But darling," Sally chided him in return, "they are!"

"There they are! There they are!" Tonino's high-pitched voice screamed as he ran toward the puppet stage.

Watching brightly colored puppets on a Sunday afternoon, in a crowd of ordinary Romans high on an ancient hill, is not something Sally would have ever done, if it were not for her life with Paolo and Tonino. It always pleased Sally when she was taken to places she might never have gone on her own, or even know there were such a place to go.

Sally felt that way this afternoon. She soaked in Tonino's soprano glee, and Paolo's shining happiness as he sat with his arm around Sally, his eyes on Tonino, in the sweet air under the endless blue Roman sky. The large crowd of people behaved as if they all knew each other, and even enjoyed being very close together. It was too crowded now to get the ice-cream they had promised Tonino. They told him when the show was over and most of the people had gone, they would stay for awhile and take some back to the car.

"It's my turn to get it," Sally told them when they got back to the car, "what kind do you want?"

"Ah, being kept by a woman--every man's dream. Chocolate." Paolo said.

"Me too," Tonino squeaked.

"Fine. Please hand me my purse," Sally requested as she reached through the driver's side window to take her bag from Paolo.

She eventually returned trying to juggle her purse, three ice cream cones--two chocolate and one vanilla--and a sheaf of falling napkins. She was holding everything in both hands, close to her chest for stability.

"Here, quick," she said as she passed the cones through the driver's side window to Paolo.

Except they didn't go through.

It was hard to tell whose face registered the more goofy surprise as the cones smashed into the now closed driver's side window back onto the front of Sally's dress. For a moment, all of life stood still.

Then, in the back seat Tonino began to convulse with laugher. He squealed and coughed and cried and flung his arms, and eventually lie down on his back, kicking his thin legs in the air.

If Sally and Paolo hadn't been laughing so hard themselves they would have been worried whether Tonino could laugh like that and still breathe.

Paolo could hardly manage to roll down the sticky, creamy car window to take the flattened cones from Sally. They were laughing so hard that people passing by saw them and started laughing too. When it was all over, they were a unique combination of exhausted and refreshed that comes from serious laughing. Paolo had managed to save most of each cone, and as they sat quietly licking up the melting drippings and rolling their tongues around the remainder of the semi-solid sweet, cold creme, every once in awhile one of them would giggle.

Tonino got the hiccups and they all went home weary and happy for no reason at all.

### CHAPTER FORTY

Sally couldn't imagine that life could ever be better. When they were having dinner, just the two of them in the secluded Piazza dei Fiori, eating spaghetti under a sky that looked fake with stars, Sally felt she was in the Disney movie, so impossibly idealized was the setting.

"Too much?" the waiter asked, concerned as Sally allowed him to continue loading her plate with pasta.

"For her, that's a contradiction in terms," Paolo told the waiter, who smiled strangely at Sally.

"Don't talk to me about contradictions," Sally told Paolo. "The biggest is all these signs around town saying 'Vota Communista'!"

Rome was in one its of its frequent voting frenzies. Romans loved politics the way Americans loved baseball. Sally was startled when she first saw the signs advertising Communism as a voting choice. With America's Cold War in full swing, she couldn't imagine a democratic country would ever make Communism an option. She had been taught that even Communists didn't want Communism. But Italy was a hotbed of improbabilities that worked, and which Sally had learned to accept: marble carved to feel like flesh and satin; commas instead of decimal points to indicate money; the time told in 24 hours ("Let's meet at twenty hours.") And the class system where some people did nothing, and everyone did everything else.

But Sally was no longer the infatuated tourist. She had become truly intimate with Italy, struggling with its daily difficulties and sharing its warmth, its beauty, and its human-ness at a new depth of appreciation. She even gave in and went through the long and annoying process of being fitted for a custom-tailored suit, a little green beauty that highlighted her good parts so perfectly it seemed to ignore her flaws. No wonder everyone in Italy looked so fine. In fact her friends were beginning to tell her she had become more Roman than the Romans, which she took as a compliment. And then realized that it hadn't been given that way.

But one group of people who didn't think she was more Roman than the Romans was the police. Sally's visa had run out a long time ago, and her friend from the American Embassy was constantly pressing her to get it extended at Police Headquarters.

"It's better to be safe than sorry," she told Sally.

"But how would they ever know?!"

"You know how. When you travel in Italy, don't you always have to leave your passport with the hotel clerk?"

"Yes. And I am very uneasy about that. So much could go wrong, and then where would I be?"

"Precisely. Why don't you try to get yourself legitimatized here as best you can. You already are working without permission, and involved with a man who will never be unmarried and can never protect your status here."

Sally was not happy about the characterization of her life as being in such a shaky state. And even though she hadn't completely lost that typical attitude of the American abroad that everywhere else in the world was just a toy town, she knew she shouldn't so flamboyantly disregard the laws of another country. A country she was more and more adopting as her own.

So Sally to decided sign up, as required, at a nearby police station and entered the large white marble building of the Questura with the sense of having another Italian adventure.

She had visions that through the registration process, handsome young Italian policemen would charm and entertain her, as all Italians usually did. In this fantasy, she would get a taste of this other side of Roman life, take her newly-stamped legal documents and leave, telling everyone at dinner about her pleasant and typically warm-hearted brush with the law.

But bureaucracies are universal.

It was after the long mid-day break, yet the building was eerily quiet and empty. She could only hear the echo of her own footsteps down the dreary hall. The first policeman she encountered was seated slovenly at a desk and had an air of perpetual disgust about him. At first, he didn't even understand what Sally wanted. Finally, he told her to go sit in a chair and wait. She did, and was very uneasy about being the only civilian there. Perhaps they were the only two people in the whole building, she thought. Where was the bustling chaos of crime, of high-strung Italian domestic disputes, of lost dogs? Perhaps they moved the police work to another building and this was just an annex? And why was she at a police station? Was wanting to stay longer in Italy a crime? Was she in the right place? Did the man really understand why she was here? What was the correct procedure, she asked him.

"Wait. Wait." he told her.

The waiting would not have been so difficult except she knew she was going to have to lie. She had a great story all worked out and was afraid she would lose it in the waiting:

Why didn't she report sooner?

She didn't know she had to; someone just mentioned it to her the other day.

Why was she in Italy so long?

She hadn't planned to stay; it just happened. Italy is so beautiful. You know how it is.

No, she didn't work. No, she never worked in Rome. Yes, she knew it was illegal to work at a job an Italian could have. Yes, she had her own money. After all, she was an American.

Where did she live? No, not in a hotel. In her own apartment? Well, yes, but a friend from the American Embassy asked her to mind it for a co-worker who went home on leave (oh god, will they check this?).

How long did she want to stay?

Er-ah-mmm-well, until, until she finished the book she was writing, on Italy, of course, and she wasn't sure how long that would.......

"Venga! Come here!" A head from a doorway down the hall commanded her. She smiled at him as she entered the small room with only a table, some chairs, and a file cabinet. He didn't smile back.

She sat in a chair. He had taken his jacket off, and sat on the table above her. A large gun in a holster over his shoulder was his most prominent feature. Sally suddenly felt as if she were visiting a parole officer. Is he serious about this gun! Sally thought. I only want a piece of paper. Isn't there just a form I can fill out, or something?

"Tell me," he commanded. Sally did. He remained motionless. When she finished, he said "Tell me again why you didn't report before this."

Sally wondered why he was so cranky. True, it was right after the siesta and it made Romans feel like they had two mornings a day. And they always complained about the afternoon heat. Sally loved the heat.

"So. You know, you've been here a very long time without permission," he chastised.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know I should report. Is it a problem?"

"Yes. It's a problem."

Sally was speechless. Which was probably a good thing, because he suddenly went to the file cabinet, his gun weighing down his arm. What could be so wrong, Sally thought. So, I'm lying...that's expected here! Maybe it's something else. Suddenly Sally remembered the Italian Secret Service man who had tapped her phone.

She met him at a press luncheon for the important Arezzo Music Festival over a year ago. She had been given a reporter friend's invitation and thought it would be fun. He was there securing Italy's Prime Minister who would launch the opening ceremonies.

She couldn't remember which one of them saw the other first. He was so gorgeous she was afraid he noticed her jaw drop. Under his chock of falling, thick black curls were the darkest, deepest, brown eyes she had ever seen...panther's eyes. And they locked onto hers and never got off.

When he finally spoke to her, she realized immediately that she disliked him. Too late; he was everywhere that she was in Arezzo and also when she got back to Rome. He became oppressive and a little frightening. He would call her up and jealously question her about all her phone conversations. It was only when it was clear that he had tapped her phone and she threatened to report him to his wife did he stop. She never saw him or heard from him again.

But what might she have said on the phone then that could hurt her now. Nothing, she was sure. Suppose he had made something up for spite, or that there was something she said that she didn't realize could be reported to the police. Did they have a file on her? Is this where the gun-toting interrogator went?

The policeman finally came back to the table with an official paper, wrote a date, stamped it and barked, "You have a little while longer. If you want to stay beyond that, don't fail to report next time!"

"Thank you. I won't" Sally said, and rushed out of the building.

When she was securely out in the Roman sunshine, she noticed that he had stamped the document for only another month. Sally stayed far beyond that time and never went back to report again.

### CHAPTER FORTY ONE

Why should she risk going back? Life was too magical.

Tonino was better. Paolo was working again. Sally had an interview for a new job with an American company, which might make her "legal." And Paolo was teaching Sally a kind of love that American culture had discouraged in her: open, sensual, full of laughter and affection.

Whenever they went out with friends, Paolo would insist on sitting next to her, even when he could be surrounded by other women, whom he naturally attracted.

Paolo too was enjoying himself so much he jokingly decided to see what a famed Roman oracle called "The Mouth Of Truth" would say about their future. The renowned "Boca della Verita'" was actually a stone demon face with a large wide open mouth carved into a wall. Legend had it that if you put your hand in the demon's mouth and it didn't bite it off, you were telling the truth.

"So put your hand in," Sally told him. Paolo did.

"Do you really love me?" Sally asked.

"You don't need this kind of proof," Paolo said, "Only someone who seriously loved you, could put up with you. Ouch!!" Paolo pretended the mouth bit him, and they both laughed.

"Now you," he said. Sally did.

Surprisingly Paolo asked in English: "Are you 'skylarking' me?" Sally was flabbergasted.

"What??!! When and where did you learn English?!"

"I wanted to surprise you," he said in Italian. "I'm trying to teach myself by looking up words in Shakespeare and Melville. Although I could probably learn English from the way you speak Italian."

"That's wonderful. But you're doing it the hard way, for sure! You can't possibly know what 'skylarking' means. _I_ barely do!"

"It means," Paolo said very seriously, "...to make sport of, tease, pull a merry prank..."

Sally's mood suddenly changed. "I'm confused....," she said, "...why would you ask me that...?"

"I want to make sure you are not just another American tourist who is out to have a grand Italian love affair, and then go home."

Sally was taken aback. "I'm not," she said.

The Mouth of Truth did not bite her hand.

But it should have.

### CHAPTER FORTY TWO

Time became condensed and rolled into one glorious mosaic of trust, laughter, and love.

They strolled the little island in the middle of the Tiber River; they saw modern art against the Medieval background of Spoleto where they were invited to a stranger's wedding simply because they were there; they heard Verdi's "Requiem" in the same spot the ancient Romans saw Greek plays; Sally took Paolo to his first supermarket and laundromat. She had found them out of desperation in the made-up town at the edge of Rome where the last Olympics had been held. They went to the Borghese Museum in the park and Paolo showed her the painting of the naked cherub he thought looked like her. And they even got chased by a bull.

Well, almost.

On yet another perfect day, the three of them went on a picnic. Far from the city they found a big field with cows. They slid under the fence, settling on a small, grassy ridge under a tree.

They spread out the blanket, which for some reason Tonino found fascinating to jump on before he took his shoes off. They laid out the sumptuous food they brought in bags from the trunk of the car, and threw down the soccer ball that Paolo and Tonino would eventually not be able to resist kicking around. Sally brought a copy of Newsweek to explore the mysteries of the country she left behind.

Paolo was just popping the cork off the wine bottle when suddenly he stopped and quietly said, "Let's go!"

"Go where?"

"Now. Go. Grab all this stuff"---he shoved Tonino's shoes at him----"don't look back and walk slowly. Hurry! Now!"

As she and Tonino did as they were told, Sally looked at the field of cows. At its edge had progressed a large bull, who for now was still, but eyeing them intently.

"Oh, no!" Sally cried, "I've never even been in a field with cows before and now I'm going to get killed by a bull!!"

"Killed, Poppa?" Tonino asked.

"No one is going to get killed. Come on. Forget all the food. Move fast, but DON'T RUN," Paolo said. He made sure they went first and put himself between them and the bull if need be.

The bull had sauntered closer to them and then stopped again. Still and glowering.

They skittled under the fence, and made it back safely to the car. They were all pale.

"I'm sorry we had to leave your ball," Paolo said.

"It's OK," Tonino squeaked.

Since they were miles from Rome with no lunch, they stopped at a small local cafe where the event started to seem funny.

"Good thing you weren't relying on me...I wouldn't know a bull from a cow," Sally said. "Hey! How do I know you weren't 'skylarking' me?!"

"He left my ball," Tonino stated.

"That should convince you," Paolo smiled.

### CHAPTER FORTY THREE

They were quiet and content on the ride back to Rome. In fact, Sally felt so cozy, so enveloped in family, that she said, "How would you all like to hear a bedtime story?"

"Hmmmm...." Paolo said.

"I don't mean one of those stories," Sally told him.

"What story?" Tonino perked up.

"How about 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears'?" Sally asked Tonino.

"Yes!" cried Tonino.

"OK," Sally said, "but I only know it in English."

"Oh," Tonino said, disappointed.

"That's alright," Paolo said. "Tell us anyway. We know the story. Right, Tonino?"

"I guess so."

"Once upon a time....." Sally began. She so dramatized the familiar tale that in spite of it being in English, Tonino was riveted throughout. When she got to the part "...and this one is just right!," both Tonino and Paolo laughed because while they didn't understand the words, they knew what part that was. Sally went along and then growled in a voice worthy of Poppa Bear, "...AND WHO'S BEEN SLEEPING IN MY BED??!" She looked over at Paolo, but this time he was unaware. She enjoyed her private joke.

"Again! Again!" Tonino requested when she was finished, "Do it again!"

She did, but before Goldilocks could get to bed for the second time, they were home. Paolo pulled up to the parking space and they each got out, slowly and languidly, all tired from the exciting day and the long ride. Sally was about to lock up her side of the car, when out from the shadows an arm sprang around her neck and got her in a chokehold.

"No!" screamed Tonino, "No!"

Sally didn't know what had happened or what was going on. While she was squirming to pull the arm away from her neck, she was vaguely aware that Paolo broke into a fierce run from the other side of the car. And that Tonino continued his anguished pleading:

"Don't do it, Mamma! Please don't do it!"

Paolo grabbed the woman, who continued to kick and curse. This helped Sally break the hold and turn around just in time to get a sock in the face, and have her beaded necklace ripped and splatter all over the ground. Paolo finally subdued the woman by sheer force, but she continued to rant and spit. All the while, Tonino was standing to the side, his thin shoulders hunched forlornly, his eyes down. He was sobbing profusely.

"Take Tonino upstairs," Paolo commanded Sally.

Sally put her hand gently on his shaking shoulders to guide him upstairs. But he didn't move. He just stood in front of the tumultuous, disheveled woman who was his mother, with his eyes down. Sobbing.

"How dare you put your son through this!?" Paolo hissed at her. "Come on! Go home!" he said, as he marched, struggling with her, down the street away from them. As Paolo led Tonino's mother away, the devastated young boy passively accepted Sally's hug and moved along with her upstairs. Sally could see that Tonino had gotten the worst blow, shocked and torn between his harmed friend and his harming mother and upset by his father's need to physically subdue her.

"I'm sorry, Sally," Tonino stammered when they got inside. "I'm sorry that she hurt you."

"Oh, sweetheart, don't be sorry. She didn't hurt me. See?"

"She broke your necklace," Tonino said, wanting to hold on to something real.

"I don't care," Sally said.

She took Tonino in her arms. She was so touched that out of all this Tonino wanted to comfort her. "I'm not even mad at your mother," Sally said. "And neither is your father. Your mother just isn't feeling well and doesn't know what to do. We both understand that.

And you know your father didn't hurt her. He just stopped her, and now he's taking care of her and helping her get back home. It will be alright."

But how could it ever be alright? Sally thought. Tonino will live with this for the rest of his life. It was true that at that moment Sally was not angry at the woman who had attacked her. She wasn't even sure why she did it. Perhaps the woman wasn't sure why either. But it was Sally, and not his mother, who was holding Tonino in her arms, and now she began to get furious that a mother could be so selfish and self-absorbed with her own problems that she would not consider or care about the consequence of her actions on her own child. People said she was crazy. Was she? Maybe, Sally thought. Or maybe she just didn't love Tonino as much as Paolo did. Or even Sally.

\---------

Once the initial surprise passed and both Paolo and Sally had comforted Tonino, Sally realized that she wanted to fight back. It was not in Sally's nature to accept an attack, and she had done so instinctively only to protect Tonino from having to witness a prolonged and escalated incident.

But Sally had become so angry by now, that the proverbial smoke felt as if it were coming out her ears. And she was chomping to go back and confront the woman.

"There's no point in that," Paolo said, "it would only make things worse."

"The point in that," Sally said, "is that she probably thinks she can do it again without consequences any time the urge hits her. I want to let her know I'm not a pushover, and that next time she'll have a real fight on her hands. One that she'll lose. The nerve of her!!" Paolo was silent.

"Well??!!" Sally insisted furiously.

"There must be a better way than another physical confrontation. That will only start this terrible thing all over again, Sally."

Paolo was right. Sally knew she wasn't going to go up to the woman's door and smack her. She even laughed to herself at the thought. It was like a cartoon.

"Well, something has to be done," Sally told Paolo. "In my country, assault is a crime."

Suddenly Sally knew what to do. "I'll go to the police! That will scare her into behaving herself!

No, on second thought I can't do that," Sally said , remembering her little bout with the Questura. "That will be worse for me than for her. Oh, let it go," Sally decided.

"No, you are right. We shouldn't let it go," Paolo finally said. "I can't allow her to have this threat over me, over us, over Tonino. Your friend Marco is a lawyer, isn't he?" Paolo asked.

"Yes...." Sally said.

"Let's have him prepare a statement for her to sign--a kind of private restraining order--where she admits she hit you and agrees to never go near you again, or you can have her arrested. It will be worse for her if it's the second time."

"But why would she agree to do this?" Sally asked.

"You can threaten to go to the police. She'll believe it, because ordinarily you should. But," Paolo added "I never want you to do it for any reason. We'll handle this ourselves. After all, she is Tonino's mother."

And it worked out exactly as Paolo said. But the signed agreement made Sally only half satisfied. Her primitive self still wanted to scratch the woman's eyes out. But she was Tonino's mother.

### CHAPTER FORTY FOUR

Sally suddenly had an overwhelming desire to catch up with herself. All her days were spent working. Every evening was spent out with Paolo and an ever-growing assortment of friends. Sally used any rare spare time to write letters back to New York, or to take care of endless daily shopping and other necessary chores. Or she clipped and watered her plants on the large terrace. She never wasted time. Sally wanted to waste time. Just for one evening.

"You know what I'd like, Paolo?"

"What would you like?" Paolo smiled, mimicking her.

Sally wasn't quite sure how to say this so he wouldn't take it personally. "I'd like to stay home one night by myself. And think. No, actually NOT think. Stay home by myself. And do nothing."

"By yourself?"

She knew he wouldn't understand. No Italian in his right mind would want to be by himself if he could be with someone else. And besides, this was an on-going struggle between them.

"I haven't been by myself in such a long time," she tried to explain.

"Are you getting tired of me?"

"No, no, of course not! Well, it's just that I'd like to visit with me for a change," she tried to joke. Paolo looked concerned.

"Oh, I'm probably just tired and maybe getting a little cold," Sally quickly added. "Anyway, how would you feel if I didn't join you all at Gino's on Friday night?"

"Ok," he said, clearly with reservation.

She had just gotten comfortable in an old robe and slippers when she realized she wasn't enjoying her visit with herself all that much. For one thing, it was hard to do nothing in a house that cried out to have something done. Also, she knew Paolo did not fully appreciate, or even understand, her need to have some time alone by herself. Which made her feel guilty. And, she missed him.

The phone rang. She was pleased it was Paolo. But he sounded strange.

"Kennedy was shot," he said.

What a weird conversation! she thought. She almost said "Kennedy who?" Instead she said," What are you talking about?"

"They shot him. President Kennedy. They say he may die."

"MY President Kennedy?? Of the United States???" She never heard of such a thing. They can't shoot a President. Of the United States! These days it would be impossible.

"Don't be silly," Sally said. "They can't shoot a President of the United States these days."

"I heard it on the news."

"The news must be wrong. They must mean something else. Or probably they made a mistake."

Softly, but firmly, Paolo said, "Your President has been shot. They think he may die." Paolo was no fool. He wouldn't tell her this if he hadn't really heard it.

"I didn't hear this!" she cried. Of course, she hadn't had the radio on for hours.

"It just came over the news. I think it may have just happened. "None of it is very clear yet, but I just wanted to let you know. Go listen. I'll call you back."

Sally quickly put on the radio. Even though she spoke Italian nearly fluently, it was hard for her to understand news on the radio. They spoke so fast and in a style she couldn't always follow. On television she could understand almost everything because she could put it together with what she saw. But even so, the radio made clear that something of disastrous proportions was going on. And it certainly involved President Kennedy. She could also make out "Dallas" and "shot." But she couldn't understand whole sentences. The phone rang again.

"He's dead," Paolo said.

"No, he's not!!" she said.

"It's on the news just now."

"I didn't hear that!!.....but..I can't make out...what they're saying..."

"I'm so sorry, Sally, but President Kennedy is dead."

"No, he isn't!!!" Sally insisted.

"Should I come over?"

"Yes. Hurry!"

Sally tried to listen again. She was so frustrated that she didn't have a television set. Well, when Paolo came he could translate it all into something she could understand. By then, the news people will have cleared up their mistake. Boy, they just don't care how much they get wrong, do they? she thought.

Sally had an unreasonable tendency to scoff at what seemed to her to be the amateurish methods of the Italian media. She remembered that during Pope John XXI's lingering death she had called one of Rome's major newspapers to check on a press release that she had sent out for a client.

The reporter who answered the phone, although no doubt harassed and overworked, simply, and cynically, said, "His feet are blue," and hung up.

Now with this Kennedy thing, Sally was really annoyed that they had apparently gone too far. No matter what Paolo told her, she would find out tomorrow what was really happening when she picked up the international HERALD TRIBUNE on the Via Veneto.

\---------

When Sally and Paolo arrived at the Via Veneto early the next day, Sally didn't even need a copy of the HERALD TRIBUNE. She was astonished to see a long funeral march of Italians making their way from the ancient stone walls around the park at the far end of the boulevard, down the winding hill past the famous, fashionable outdoor cafes, to the end of the street where the American Embassy was located. The mourners were headed to the Embassy with purple and black funeral banners. And flowers. Blocks and blocks of flowers. They were walking slowly to a small but solemn funeral band, and they were crying.

The marchers were crying. People on the street were crying. The cafe patrons were crying. The policemen were crying. All of Rome was crying. Sally did not cry.

Paolo did not cry either. But Paolo was visibly upset. He was upset for Sally. And as a political professional, he was also disturbed at the uncertain fallout of this event for Italy, for America, and for the world. He was not surprised that Sally seemed so cool about it all. He realized that she was in a nearly clinical state of denial and shock. He stood by her constantly, watching her like a hawk. He held her hand. He touched her hair. But she wouldn't let him hold her in his arms. She said there was no reason to, as she stood there pulling herself more and more into herself and away from the reality of the world and everyone in it.

They turned around almost immediately and headed for Paolo's apartment where there was a television set. Neither of them said much on the way. Sally was working hard at still hoping it was all a mistake. The two state-owned television channels were transmitting via satellite the exact coverage that was taking place in America, as it was happening, as well as replays of previous events .There was an Italian voice over the picture, but Sally could still faintly hear the American reporters underneath. Finally she would be able trust her eyes and ears.

In the darkened room, they sat like stone statues, holding each other's hands as they watched the re-runs of the shooting in Dallas. It was so hard to make out! Was that the President? Was he down? Yes, yes, it must be Kennedy: Jackie in her hat, climbing over, covering him with her own body. Oh, my god! Oh, my god! But he's ok, isn't he? He doesn't have to be dead!! What is that? People in the crowd, falling on the ground? Some smiling and waving at the TV camera. Well, maybe he's just hurt? No, look there's Jackie----oh, is that blood on her? It can't be. It must be!! She's next to Johnson. What the hell is he doing? He's President!! Oh, god. Oh, god.

"Paolo," Sally pleaded. "Paolo." As if he could change everything.

Together they stayed glued to the television for three days. Eating in the living room. Talking in low voices. Yet by being overseas at this time, Sally missed so many of details in the U.S. as they happened. She missed the fear. The talk of an international plot. The closing of the boarders. Even the protests when these shattering events interrupted the daily "soaps."

While they watched, the phone rang constantly. Their friends would first speak to Paolo and then ask for Sally. They would tell her how sorry they were, and give her their condolences. They treated her as if a close relative had died. With the added regret that this beloved person didn't just die, but had been murdered by another member of the American family. A situation not unfamiliar to Italians in their own long, turbulent history.

At one point Paolo said, "Sally, I have to say I admire you Americans. You passed so quickly and peacefully from one President to another without a revolution! That's impressive. And, now, look....here. How quickly you've captured this guy.....what's his name?..."

"Oswald"

"Oswald. This guy Oswald on his way to jail so soon after...."

Together they saw a handcuffed Oswald being led through a jostling crowd. He looked like a college student in his dark crew neck sweater and white collared shirt. Together they saw the Dallas police seemingly lead him straight into a man in a fedora hat. A sudden shot and a huge commotion on the screen cut off Paolo's sentences of praise. They were both still numb from previous events and now Jack Ruby's shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald again turned reality inside out. For Sally, it was so preposterous that a part of her was sure none of it was true.

But Paolo possessed that ancient steady-eyed European view that anything could happen; no historical horror seemed impossible, no conspiracy was too far fetched.

Increasingly dumbfounded, together they watched the draped casket on wagon wheels, the riderless horse, the drums. It could have been Lincoln's funeral. "Oh, Captain! My Captain!" The burial in the cold wind.

Sally continued to watch the solemn, sparse and nearly Puritanical Presidential funeral procession--so different from the opulent and massive rituals of European emperors, kings, and dictators---with a feeling that America had disappeared. She didn't even think to call home because something inside of her said it probably wasn't even on the planet anymore. After all, she had left one country behind, and while she was away, it had disappeared and another must have taken its place.

\---------

The weeks went by and soon Rome returned to normal. People who knew Sally was American finally stopped rushing up to her on the street, in a hallway, or in a restaurant, and hugging her and crying. She could now stop making herself stiff and barely tolerant each time they did this. Now too Paolo was relieved of having to take over this awkward situation by putting his hand on their shoulders and saying a kind word to them, as if Sally were incapacitated and he was the translator. In fact Paolo was being very kind in general about the fact that for awhile now Sally was not much fun to be with.

Finally one midnight before Paolo left to go home, Sally woke up and said: "I had the strangest dream about Jackie Kennedy last night. Jackie and I were...somewhere...and I was with her as if I were her best friend. And she was so full of pain, that I was in pain too. She was crying and I loved her so much that her pain was tearing me apart!!"

"Why is that so strange?" Paolo asked.

"Well, it's understandable that I grieve for her, but these emotions were so much stronger than that. It was as though I were the widow. Yet I hardly knew either of them. I've been here their whole time in office. I essentially feel they are strangers to me, like they are someone else's President and First Lady. Besides, I even think that whole 'Camelot' thing was a bit overdone..."

Paolo hunched himself up on one elbow and his wise eyes studied her face. "But that wasn't Jackie Kennedy," Paolo said.

"No?" she asked, turning her face toward his. "Who was it?"

"She was just... your stand-in for.... America," Paolo replied.

"America!" Sally held her breath. The torrent of surprise, confusion, grief, fear and loneliness that the Kennedy assassination had buried deep in her at last broke through. "Yes, America. America...!" she cried.

As Sally finally cried for America, the tears tumbled from her eyes and streamed down her cheeks while Paolo tried gently to brush them away.

### CHAPTER FORTY FIVE

Sally was relieved when she saw Paolo waiting for her. She had tried to call him all day to let him know she would be late getting out of work. It was unusual that she couldn't get a hold of him at home at least some time during the day.

Especially since he had no job. Again, the Italian government was toppled by irresolvable differences of opinion. Again, Paolo was now waiting for it to be put back together.

Again.

These last few years were particularly turbulent for the Italian Parliament. As a result, Paolo was out of work more and more often. And he had less and less money. Sometimes he couldn't even afford to put Italy's expensive gasoline in the car.

Sally wanted to help him. Her new job, for an American import firm, was steady and well-paid by Italian standards. But Paolo would not hear of it. Once, when Paolo was more nervous and irritable than usual about having so little money, Sally suggested that he take a temporary, or even part-time, job. Paolo looked at her as if she had lost her mind.

"You can't just get a job! Sally," Paolo said. "There aren't any. And for whatever work there is, you have to go through friends and get recommendations. I couldn't ask someone to go to all that trouble for me for a job I wasn't going to keep."

"Well, then," Sally continued pragmatically, "don't go after something high-level. Work in a store, pump gas in a garage, look in the papers, do anything."

"I can't do just _anything!_ I have a PROFESSION!!"

"OK," Sally said.

She thought how different this attitude was from the life she knew in the States. She remembered a college friend who was studying to be a doctor. During semester breaks he would work as a freight elevator operator in the building his father owned.

"But," Sally continued to Paolo, "it seems to me one does everything possible to solve a problem when there is one." It was hopeless. She saw that Paolo actually could not comprehend what she was talking about. But now, as she walked to the car, she still wondered why she could not find him, or his mother, at home anytime today.

"Sorry I'm late," she said as she leaned over and kissed his ear. He looked terrible.

"Tonino is in the hospital again."

"What...! When? What for!?"

"He went in this afternoon. The doctor called me this morning with the results of the blood tests from his last medical exam. They weren't so good. He's getting new transfusions now."

"Oh, this is awful!" Sally said. "I thought he was all better! This isn't supposed to happen, is it?!" Paolo shrugged.

"I only have a few moments, but I wanted to see you. Let's have a coffee. Then I'm going back to the hospital."

Over coffee, Sally said, "I'll go with you."

"No."

"'No?' What do you mean 'no'?" Sally was flabbergasted. Then she thought something terrible was happening to Tonino and she got scared. "Why can't I go?"

Paolo said, "His mother may go to see him."

"So?" Sally asked.

"So, I never know what she is going to do next. If you're there, she may make another scene and I definitely don't want Tonino to have to deal with that now."

"But she's under contract not to," Sally reminded him. "Besides, she wouldn't make a scene in the hospital, would she? Not in front of Tonino now, would she?"

"I don't know. But I'm not going to take the chance."

"But, Paolo, I want to go. I want to see Tonino. I want to be with you. "

"Sorry, I have to go now, Sally," Paolo stated coldly. He paid the cashier at the doorway and said "I'll call you later."

Sally sat at the table trying to let it all sink in. She could hardly believe Tonino was sick again. They had been so sure he would be one of the lucky ones. That is, Sally had been sure.

Not only that , but now she had just been shoved out of Paolo's life, the door slammed in her face. True, it was only for a little while, but she had believed he would never do that to her.

Not even for a minute.

### CHAPTER FORTY SIX

When Paolo entered Sally's apartment, she saw his face and wanted to scream. The stricken man sat down and looked around the room in a fog.

"He's going to die," Paolo told Sally.

"No, he isn't," Sally said, impatiently.

Paolo shot her a dark look, as if he thought her resistance was mocking him. "Well, not today, of course....." Paolo said vaguely, "....actually, we don't know when....but now it's just a matter of time....."

"Why is he going to die!" Sally said.

Paolo was startled by her question. She knew why.

"Sally....you know why."

"No. No. It's never sure! Don't believe it, just because they say so! It can be changed!"

Paolo put his hand up wearily to stop her.

"Let's take him to New York!" Sally cried.

Paolo was getting annoyed. "New York! What for?!"

"They can cure him in New York. They know everything about leukemia in New York...they have the latest research....the latest medicine...the best treatments....I don't think the doctors here are so advanced. Besides, did you see any other doctors?! Maybe they would say something different.....! Please. Let's take him to New York and try to make him better!"

Sally saw that her conversation was more like blows to Paolo's head than an offer of hope. She realized that this was not the time. She stopped, but she would bring it up again...later. They sat in silence as the day outside the terrace doors started to fade, leaving the unlit room gray all over.

"All we can do," Paolo finally said, "is to live more or less normally, so that he is not aware of any of this-----and to keep him as happy and comfortable as possible."

"All we can do????!!!!!" Sally couldn't believe her ears. "Why are you so ready to give up!" she cried.

For the only time in her life she thought Paolo would hit her. But he got a hold of himself and instead abruptly left the apartment, slamming the door.

Well, she thought, maybe I shouldn't have said it. But it was true. It seemed to Sally that he was always giving up. Or at least not solving things. But what did she expect from him? Did she expect Paolo to keep Tonino alive? Did she expect him to keep the Italian government intact?

Did she expect him to bring divorce to Italy?

Yes, I'm unreasonable, she thought. But maybe not. Maybe if we could get past this culture of apathy, something else could happen. She hated the common Italian greeting that characterized it so perfectly. They would ask: "How are you?" And shrug an answer: "One camps."

One camps!! she always thought, is that all that can be hoped for?! Perhaps given Italy's history, that was already a lot. But American Sally couldn't accept this. She knew there was another way. America was built on it. It was in Sally's bones.

And she recoiled at what Italians called the "expected tragedy," the kind of devastation that is also shrugged off when floods and earthquakes hit. She remembered one such conversation: "Was there much damage from the flood?" Shrug. "There wasn't much damage left to fix. They never fixed it from the last one."

Suddenly she was furious at Paolo, as though it were some grotesque plot of his that Tonino was going to die. Because Italians didn't fix their floodgates, she was blaming Paolo for letting Tonino die! I must be losing my mind, Sally finally said to herself, this is insane. She telephoned Paolo.

"I'm sorry," she said, "I'm so sorry. Instead of fighting you, I should be holding you."

Sally could hear Paolo crying.

### CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN

Sally knew Tonino would not die. "Isn't it wonderful how much the transfusions help!"

Paolo simply answered, "They'll help until they don't help anymore."

How Italians exaggerate!! Sally thought. In fact, Italians always admonished each other in every conversation: "Don't exaggerate!"

The proof was that right now Tonino was back at home recovering, once again, after the restorative effects of his treatments. We've been through this before, Sally thought. In a little while the kid will be running around. He'll be fine.

As for Paolo's work, Sally considered that another story. She decided a career in Italian politics was like being an actor in New York: most of the time the show was closed.

But life in sunny, semi-tropical Rome was so simple and amiable that strangely even these two seeming catastrophes did not much change the smoothness of daily events. Now that the immediate crisis with Tonino had passed, Sally and Paolo continued almost as before, deep in their intimacy and appreciation of each other, of their casual ease with friends, and of Tonino. As expected, Tonino eventually resumed 'normal' life again, although there was a basic change in him this time, as he remained paler and more subdued than ever. However, he still painted and poured over his growing collection of stamps in his squeaky, boyish way.

But there was a change in Paolo too. Although life went on more or less in the usual manner, Paolo was sadder than ever. He was becoming like a balloon that was slowly leaking air.

He was losing whatever buoyancy he had.

Sally was sympathetic, but Paolo's just below the surface awareness of doom was hard for her. She felt he should not be so quick to accept death when there is a glimmer of life. Like most Americans, Sally firmly believed in sculpting a life of well-being, happiness, and hope. She wanted to say to Paolo, "When you are so resigned, I feel like life has no options, that it's already as it will always be, and there is no hope. Worse. There is no attempt at hope."

She wanted to say, "If you won't take things into your own hands and I have to depend on you, where am I?" But she never said any of it.

So a change started to come over Sally as well. Paolo's fatalism about life--what one allows oneself to be able to do; in this case, regarding work and death--was becoming to Sally an echo of what she could now see as the dark side of the Roman experience.

After the first awe that such a place as Rome could even exist began to wear off, Sally started to feel a definite undertone of emptiness, of frustration, of uselessness, of withering.

She thought there is something dangerous to a person's sense of self worth here in Rome, among the mural of the past. Living in Rome was like living in a mob scene of the centuries. Sally often felt overwhelmed. She especially felt this way when walking on the old stone streets around the many ancient ruins throughout the city. These same streets that through millennia had supported, each for a moment, too many other lives for her own life to impress her. It made Sally feel insignificant, gave her the impression of being trampled by all the feet that had ever walked on these same stones. She was shamed for her misguided sense of uniqueness under the gaze of all the other eyes that had ever seen the same carved columns, or thought the same thoughts.

A kind of claustrophobia began to set in for her.

The "wisdom" she thought she loved--in Paolo, in Italy--she started to see as form of passivity. Her American "can do" soul was getting restless. In addition, the very thing that once charmed her, that Italians live in their history, began to grate. She now saw them as people rooted in past ideas about what one should do or not do; could do or not do; or whether it mattered much whether you do anything at all.

More and more frequently, Sally began staring longingly at travel posters of New York the way she used to look at posters of Italy. She would stare into those skyborne views of Central Park, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty...as familiar to her as the furniture in her own living room.. and know that too much was happening at home while she was gone.

On a personal level her grandmother died, her cousin got married, her sister went away to school; Ruth was now in love. As an American abroad, she had missed the Cuban Missile crisis, the deaths of Marilyn Monroe and JFK, the March on Washington; and now she was away from all that was going on in the Civil Rights movement, Feminism, and the war in Viet Nam. Everything was changing and she felt that if she didn't get back before it was all entirely different, she would have lost her place in it.

Being away from America at this time meant she was missing the country's "growing up" and changing into something else. Like missing the key events in a loved one's life that you could never recapture. Sally was losing not only the formation of her country's history, but its pop culture from Beatlemania to Barbra Streisand as well. She was developing a kind of Cultural Amnesia.

Meanwhile in Italy she felt the stagnation: the unemployment, the constant shutdowns of critical facilities, the fatalism, and the kind of hostility against women's freedom that made Italy's village men throw rocks at them when they drove a car. And a cultural inability or unwillingness to solve problems of any kind.

She would ask herself if she were happy with her life in Rome. And she would answer, not anymore. She would ask herself if she still loved Paolo, and she would answer that she did. It astounded her that she could love someone, and be loved by him, and still not be happy with her life. She had always thought these would be one and the same thing. And the truth was, this situation made Sally afraid.

She fought against these feelings but they kept getting stronger. She remembered Paolo had once asked if she would ever "skylark" him. She certainly never wanted to do that, but she now felt an overwhelming need to have Paolo open his hand, the one that always gently encompassed hers, so, like that trickster bird, she could suddenly soar toward the sky again.

### CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT

After driving down the winding hill of the Via Veneto, they entered Piazza Barbarini and were forced to circle the loop around the Fountain of Triton, where Neptune gulped greedily from the shell of life, and then turn toward the street that would exit the Piazza.

Sally said," I want to leave."

Paolo didn't understand, but assumed that she meant where they were. "We are leaving," he said, knowing he was stating the obvious. "Where do you want to go?"

"Home." Sally said.

"Home?" He paused. "We can go home if you like. But I thought you needed to go to the bank."

"No, I mean 'home.' To America."

"To America!" The air shot out of Paolo as though Sally had punched him in the stomach.

"To America?! Why? For a visit?"

"No." she answered. "I'm just ready to go home."

Paolo was silent as he kept driving. Finally he said, "Ready? What does 'ready' mean? Why would you leave? You have a secure job, a comfortable apartment, lots of friends...." He wouldn't say "And me." Nor did he say "Me and Tonino." He wanted Sally to choose them, not to be cajoled into keeping them.

"I can't really explain," Sally said. "It just seems to be time. Besides, I'm tired of Rome. Everybody says the same thing."

Paolo was stunned. "You want to leave because everybody says the same thing??!!"

"No, no," Sally said. "It's more. I don't know." As she became able to narrow down her feelings, they all came streaming out at once. "I feel like a prisoner. It's so hard to get a job here, that even if I start to dislike this one, or if they fire me, I'll never get another. And I'm a second class citizen. I don't have any rights. I don't have any protection about staying in my apartment. Italian is not my language....I, and, oh, everything."

"I think you are exaggerating," Paolo said. He had stopped the car and turned to reason with her. "First, you have a good job. Second, they won't fire you; they just offered you a contract. You don't need protection for your apartment. Every landlord in Rome wants to rent to an American. And you speak Italian just fine!" He still didn't say, "What about me? What about Tonino?"

And because he didn't, at that moment what had been just a vague, but increasingly stronger feeling about Paolo's perceived weaknesses, his fatalism about Tonino, his being married with no end in sight, his paralyzing wisdom, became fact in her head.

"I'm going home," she said.

Paolo's face started to fall. And then it turned to stone. He started the car and drove toward her apartment. They were almost there when he said, "When?"

"In a couple of months."

"Well," Paolo said, "that will give you enough time to change your mind."

"No," Sally said. "That will give me enough time to pack."

### CHAPTER FORTY NINE

Sally thought she had made up her mind, although it really wasn't her mind that was making her want to go back home. Some unseen force had taken over and was pulling her in that direction.

But there were days when she felt it was absurd to think she would not be in Rome always.

Sally started slowly--very slowly--to undo her Roman life, half hoping that if she moved slowly enough she could fight the homeward pull and find the strength to stay. But once the process was begun...the calls about renting her apartment; not filling her calendar at the office with appointments too far in advance; putting paper and clothes in organized little piles for packing; inquiring about ship's tickets; and seeing every Roman stone and ray of light with the intensity and memory of a camera that would save them for later....it all began to take on a life of its own. Leaving was like a package where once the string starts to come untied, there was no stopping the unraveling.

For Sally and Paolo the remaining time together was painfully bittersweet. Paolo was counting on Sally's love for him to be strong enough to change her mind about going away.

"But I'll come back soon," Sally told him, "and in the meantime it will be a great chance for you and Tonino to come to New York. Won't you come? You'll both love it and maybe you'll see that you'll want to stay...."

"I can't stay, Sally," Paolo said, "how would I work? What would I do? I don't even speak English."

"I can help you. You'll learn. You can stay with me. I'm sure we can find you a job. We can take Tonino for the finest medical treatment...." Sally was all caught up in some turn of the century immigrant's version of the American Dream.

"Maybe," Paolo said vaguely.

Sally wanted to keep hope alive. "Well, anyway, you can visit and see."

"Isn't it possible," Paolo asked, "that it's you who could visit New York and when you catch up on what you think you're missing and get it out of your system, you'll return here?"

"Maybe," Sally said vaguely.

Either way, each of them believed the other would arrange somehow to never stay permanently apart. But after this conversation, Paolo did not again discuss Sally's staying in Rome. He seemed once more to be ready to let life take its course. Sally felt this was further evidence that Paolo had a tendency to give up. And it propelled her further into longing for the action, the stamina, the willingness to wrestle life to the ground that she thought she would find back in America.

But what Sally didn't recognize was that she too was letting events run their course.

### CHAPTER FIFTY

The day came.

The ship was sailing that evening and they were to leave Rome in the afternoon. Tonino would not say good-bye. He looked at the floor and only spoke to his father again. He asked Paolo to bring him a present from Naples. Sally hugged him tight anyway.

As they drove out of the city and passed all her beloved places, Sally tried to take in all of Rome in one gulp. I'll be back, she told herself.

For Paolo and Sally the trip to Naples was a sad reversal of the earlier one that had begun their romance in earnest. Again, they hardly spoke; but this time it was because the end was already in sight, and not the beginning.

They crossed the pier in a silent daze as if there were no sound from the hustle and bustle, the horns, the music, and the shouting that accompanies every ocean liner's departure. Sally didn't remember getting on the ship, up to the deck, and leaning over the railing to look out over the crowd below.

But she would never forget the sight of Paolo. She found his tall, stately body in that crowd, and recognized his tired face.

"Paolo! Paolo!" Sally shouted and waved.

He probably didn't hear her above the din, but caught her wave as his eyes automatically searched for her among the line of happy passengers. He waved back without pleasure.

It was good-bye.

He lowered his head and started to move out of the crowd. She followed his back and wanted to yell out "Wait!!", but she knew he wouldn't hear her.

Past the edge of the crowd, alone in the dim light of the pier on his way to the exit, he turned and looked up. All the lines in his face were twisted and his eyes were hollow with loss. He looked surprised at his own pain.

And then he was gone.

### CHAPTER FIFTY ONE

Eventually, Sally left the cool evening air on deck and entered the smoky, festive ship's lounge crowded with strangers, other Americans who seemed like foreigners to her.

There she got a wave of grief so strong that she staggered alone, nearly fainting, to an empty chair while the band continued to play under a shower of confetti.

### CHAPTER FIFTY TWO

A few days after leaving Naples the ship stopped at Genoa before then sailing directly across the Atlantic to New York. While there was still time it would not be too late to get off. She could say it was an emergency. It felt like an emergency. It would be difficult, but not impossible, to have the crew unload her many bags--nearly twice as many as when she arrived. She wanted to take as much of Rome home with her as she could. Yes. She would leave the ship and go back to Rome and Paolo. She would call everyone later and tell them that she had changed her mind.

Her family and friends in New York were so excited about her homecoming that they had made Sally almost able to taste it. She couldn't wait to hug them all. Well, too bad. She had to go back to Rome.

No. She couldn't. It felt too erratic for her sensible American mind. What would be the point? What would be different? Besides, she had given up everything that had been hers in Rome. And Paolo was in no condition to put it back together for her. He could hardly keep himself afloat.

No, she would go home and work. Work for real, work to advance, work to make money. For them. When Paolo saw how good life could be in America, he would come over. She would bring them over. It was best for everyone this way.

But she urgently needed to speak to him. Until now she had never gone a day without speaking to him. She would telephone Rome.

Sally couldn't believe that the Italian phone system was still so primitive. Even all these many years later it seemed that they had never managed to put themselves completely back together after the war that destroyed Europe. There was only one phone on the pier and everyone wanted to use it. Long distance was a particular problem with bad connections and long waits.

And Sally was fifth on the list to call Rome. As she waited and huddled on the cold, damp pier, a terror crept into her stomach.

What if they're not home and she never heard their voices again? What if the ship was ready to sail before her call was put through? What if she couldn't stand it anymore and begged to go back? All the trouble that would start! What if they didn't want to speak to her!?

She finally settled in the small, cramped phone booth with several others still milling around behind her, surly with impatience. The call went through. There was so much noise.

"Pronto! Pronto!" she shouted.

When she heard Paolo's soft, sexy, funny voice, she started to cry so hard that he almost had trouble knowing who it was.

Sally felt his sudden joy as they began to speak. "Yes, I know you are in Genoa now, he said. "Tonino and I have a map and everyday we mark a point where you are. See, we are going with you anyway." She felt her heart would split in her chest.

She started to reply but the static on the line was cutting off every other word between them.

Sally felt as if the phone was crumbling in her hands. She wanted to clutch some wire of return, to scream into the black circle, to push her words into the black silence.. But it was no use. Paolo and Sally were desperate to remain together these last few minutes, yet the phone went dead.

But after all, what could a going say except that she was gone.

### CHAPTER FIFTY THREE

The ship had barely cleared the Azores when the worst North Atlantic storm in decades began to violently toss the vessel around the vast ocean. Waves, phosphorescent in their fierceness, washed over the uppermost decks, sending the nose of the liner deep under the sea and then bouncing up again. Windows broke. Passengers screamed. And the Captain ordered everyone to their cabins.

Food was served when it could be, with ropes in the hallways to help the passengers cling to something on the way to the dining room. Some nights it got so bad the Captain told the passengers over the loudspeakers to tie themselves into bed.

On this trip, there were no walks around a sunny deck, no meeting interesting people, no games, no bands, and no fun. It suited Sally just as well.

She cried alone in her cabin the whole way across, and she could pick several reasons why: sea sickness, fear and grief.

### CHAPTER FIFTY FOUR

Sally and the other passengers were totally worn out by the long dangerous trip. But almost no one could resist going on deck in the calm early morning as they entered New York Harbor. Sally especially needed to see the breathtaking skyline once again, and the proud Statue of Liberty holding up the lamp that still lit up the world.

By the time the ship docked further up the Hudson River, a festive mood had crept aboard once more; this time it was because everyone was so glad to get OFF!

But it was an arduous process getting off the ship and it took several hours. First, all the passengers bags had to be collected from every stateroom. Or unloaded from deep within the ship's cargo hold. Trunks, crates, suitcases and even cargo were unloaded by hooks, cranes, and on pallets by gangs of longshoremen. Then each of the bags, trunks, suitcases, and crates were inspected, very slowly, by Customs Agents while anxious relatives and friends waited beyond the large bay doors outside in a huge, crowded pier hall.

Sally wasn't sure anyone would be there to greet her; the weather had made the ship's arrival so uncertain. At long last, she was let free to go into the thronged waiting hall.

Sally saw her mother first. How beautiful she looked! How much she had missed her!

They cried as they hugged for the first time in years.

"Oh, that hat!" Sally's mother scolded, "why are you wearing that silly hat!" The peaked plaid cap was all the fashion in Italy. "Well, it's not the style here," her mother said.

Sally's father just slapped her a bit on the shoulders. He wasn't much for hugging. "We hear you had a rough time out there, kiddo. Glad you made it," was all he said.

"It's so amazing," Sally said as they walked out to the busy street into the gray New York light, "how everything looks as if I were here just a minute ago."

"Did you think the place would collapse because you were gone," her teen-age sister said.

They split two cabs between all the people and luggage, and headed to Ruth's apartment where Sally would move back into her old room, until she decided just how to proceed with her newly-resurrected New York life.

It's so solid, Sally thought as they drove through the deep canyons below the skyscrapers. She tried to see the sky. She should have been excited and happy with the possible joys that lay ahead , but all she felt was an unshakable sadness in the depth of her heart.

### CHAPTER FIFTY FIVE

She had been home about two weeks when Sally's old friend Harriet arranged a dinner with other friends at a fancy New York restaurant. "They are dying to see you again. It will be fun." Harriet said: "Don't forget, get really dressed up."

"Are you sure you don't want to join us," Sally asked Ruth. "Harriet wouldn't mind. You know everyone."

"No, thanks," Ruth said," I've been looking forward to a Saturday night to just fall apart and hang around. Maybe I'll curl up and read."

Fall apart were the words for it. Curtains were down, dirty dishes were still piled high in the sink. Clothes, books ,records, newspapers, everything was scattered carelessly all over the apartment. Ruth certainly looked comfortable in her beat up old clothes.

"Ok," Sally said.

Dinner was indeed elegant. There was a certain New York tinkle about the place; a low noise that was both reserve and celebration. It made Sally feel good. Each taking a turn, her friends told Sally what they had been doing these past years. For her part, after some short generalizations about Italy, Sally didn't even try to explain. She wouldn't know where to start.

When they finished, Harriet asked, "How's Ruth? I'd love to see her; it's been a long time."

"I asked her to join us," Sally said, "but..."

"Well, why don't we go back to the apartment and have coffee with her," Harriet suggested.

"I don't think so," Sally said, "she just wants to hang out. Besides the house is such as mess..."

"I'll call her and see if it's ok," Harriet said, getting up and heading for the phone.

"No, I don' think so...." Sally tried to say.

Sally couldn't believe that Ruth had actually agreed to the visit. But then, Ruth always was much more easy-going about everything.

It took longer to get back than Sally remembered, but Harriet pointed it out it was theater night in Manhattan.

"SURPRISE!!!!!!"

Sally was so taken aback that she almost tripped through the front door.

Harriet was laughing, very pleased with herself.

Ruth looked stunning and glamorous.

Fresh curtains were on all the windows, the house was shiningly clean, and party decorations had been hung in all the rooms. The dining room table held a scrumptious buffet and lots of champagne. The place was jammed. Her mother, father, sisters, cousins, friends, former colleagues, old boyfriends, and friends of friends filled the apartment to the last inch of floor space.

The music went on. In between hugging, and kissing, and screaming, Sally managed to ask Ruth, "How did you.....?" Ruth just shrugged and smiled.

What a time they had! It was so good to see everyone again .Sally had the feeling that her whole life was gathered here. Well, most of her life.

It was the happiest, most exuberant crowd Sally had been with in a long time. To actually touch, talk, and be with beloved people long unseen felt so wonderful. The loud, rhythmic music had everyone dancing, mostly in place since there was hardly any room. Except for the spaces vacated by those who somehow always crammed into the tiny kitchen at every party.

Sally was having so much fun she did something very rare: she danced with her undanceable father. Family and friends who had never met before became best buddies. Sally flirted harmlessly. And no one left amid warm and tight hugs until very early in the morning.

Sally was finally home.

### CHAPTER FIFTY SIX

Now all Sally had to do was find a job.

It was so easy, she was astonished.

A few phone calls to old colleagues, and soon she heard that a well-known advertising agency needed a person with international experience to handle a client involved in foreign trade. Usually it would be hard for a woman to get a position like this, but now Sally's overseas experience was perfect for the job and the job was perfect for Sally.

Besides being the only female executive in the agency, Sally had her very own secretary. Best of all, her salary would be much more than she could ever have hoped for in Italy. Now she knew she had done the right thing.

Before long she could bring Paolo and Tonino over, and probably even carry an apartment for them all until Paolo got his own job. She wrote to Paolo right away.

But underneath it all, Sally was somewhat apprehensive. After all, she had not worked in the demanding, fast-paced, what-did-you-do-for-me-today New York environment for far too long. She was afraid she was rusty. But it turned out to be a like riding the proverbial bicycle: she just clicked in again to the rhythm, and was even nourished by the challenge.

The sweet courtesy of the Italians had given her a good working style. From living abroad, her hands-on experience of coping with whatever the world at large could throw at her turned out to be just what the firm needed. She could handle anything.

Except her secretary.

"She doesn't want to work for a woman." A co-worker brought this information back to Sally. "She thinks it doesn't give her enough prestige." Sally thought: It's always the enemy within.

After several weeks of frustrating non-cooperation, Sally brought the problem up delicately to management. "Why not make her happy--both of us happy--and let her work for someone else. I don't mind trying someone new."

"There is no one," she was told. "We found out that none of the secretaries want to work for you. They never worked for another woman before." Sally had a sudden urge to slap every one of them. Instead, she focused on figuring out the best way to handle the situation. With her workload she needed a partner not a saboteur.

One morning a new face was at her secretary's desk: an older woman who had worked many years for the company and whose long-time male boss had just retired. Olivia was very gruff and outspoken.

"Let's get it straight," Olivia told Sally, "they put me here because I'll be retiring myself soon. I don't like it, but I'll do it!" And she did.

Sally gave Olivia more and more interesting work to do and more freedom to do it in. Soon Olivia was really part of the team, which was progress of sorts. Still, the men on Sally's job level never asked her to lunch with them, and the woman below Sally's job level never asked her anywhere.

Sally didn't care. Her letters to Paolo were full of excitement, pleasure, pride, and all the reasons why he and Tonino should come to New York to live this wonderful life. "See," Sally wrote him, "you would not have to worry about being out of work anymore each time the government fell. In New York there are so many opportunities in companies that would be thrilled to get your intelligence and political experience. Tonino would love it too--there are several international schools, even art schools at his level. Think about how it would expand his horizons and education. You'd be challenged too, by all the new and creative aspects of this life."

In every letter, Sally held out a few more carrots to Paolo. What she pushed most strongly was the freedom, the independence, the diversity, the options. "You don't have to think about what social class you are in order to do what needs doing. You can even change your career if you want.

There are no rituals, no obligations to the past, and very little chance of stagnation."

Paolo was not much of a letter writer, but now and then he would send one of several pages.

He would tell her of politics--divorce was now on the docket—write about their friends, what they did and how they always asked about her. And he told her Tonino was really becoming a serious painter for a kid his age.

"You seem to be thriving," Paolo acknowledged to Sally. But he never said he wanted to join her.

### CHAPTER FIFTY SEVEN

In spite of how it seemed, and what she told him, only part of Sally was thriving. She had become twins.

One twin was a feisty New Yorker, reveling in the hard, competitive struggle, working to its fast beat and mesmerized by the pulsating lights that surrounded her at night like excited fireflies. This twin savored things done in a New York Minute, rather than not done at all in the Roman "La Dolce Fa Niente"--the Sweet Do Nothing. Now Sally's life was characterized by the fact that she had three separate appointment books: one for the office, one for home, and one for in between.

But the second twin thought New Yorkers walked too fast, as if everyone were in the military. She missed the sexy strolling the Romans had perfected. And she continued to be bereft, in mourning for the sound of Paolo's voice.

This twin's flesh suffered from not being touched, caressed, lusted by him. Could not bear the absence of his general wisdom, quiet humor, and sense of the absurd. Or his solid decency. Or his intense attention.

It was as though the New York twin were in a frantic theme park that would turn bad if the distractions were not kept up. Yet the other twin longed to be in the soft psychological candlelight of Rome, with its casual encounters rather than rigid dates.

The Roman twin longed for Italy's physical beauty, its fountains, sunshine, outdoor cafes. And sky. Sally could not see the sky in New York.

One day she looked out her office window for a soothing glimpse of blue sky during a particularly stressful moment, and it wasn't there! Instead, there were gray buildings criss-crossing, blocking, and over shadowing each other. A jagged geometry of lines, gray concrete and glass reflections like an infinity of madhouse mirrors. What Sally saw from her window was a gray box without sky.

The Roman twin had a convulsive attack of claustrophobia.

But the New York twin dismissed it as she answered the stridently ringing phone.

### CHAPTER FIFTY EIGHT

It had been a particularly dreary day.

The city was damp, raw, and all one color.

Sally always thought that when New York took on that cold, steely light, it turned rude and mean. Something in the low, gray clouds seemed to hurt everyone's skin.

Sally was happy to get home and had just gotten into her fuzzy slippers and bathrobe when the bell rang.

"Who is it?" she yelled through the intercom.

The scratchy voice yelled back: "Flower delivery!"

The twenty-four tulips were milky white, all white. They were mixed with lush green ferns, and the effect gave a startling reminder of the pleasure of nature.

The card read: "It's spring. You should be here. Paolo."

### CHAPTER FIFTY NINE

Ruth and Sally were at Lincoln Center to hear the New York Philharmonic Orchestra play. The concert was to feature the world premiers of several new works by living composers. Ruth and Sally loved evenings like this. Often the composers themselves were in the audience.

While daylight in New York could be sunny and sharply beautiful, it was just as common for it to be overcast, monotone, and ugly. But the nights never were. Whether offering a hazy drizzle, or the piercing clarity that made stars visible even beyond the bright lights, New York nights could not be matched. This was such a night.

One of the very few fountains in New York was in the middle of Lincoln Center's strolling plaza. The alternating gushes of water were awash with illumination. It was good to be near a fountain again. Being here was good. Being with Ruth, at ease and interested, was good. The music was good. Life was good.

Sally hoped that all this goodness would succeed in pushing away the creeping sadness that had started to take over more and more of her days.

### CHAPTER SIXTY

Whenever she had one of her dreams about Paolo, Sally would wake up happy. Then she would remember there was a distance of 3,000 miles between them. And the dull, all-day-long pain would start. It was as if her heart had a headache she couldn't take anything for.

On these days, she would constantly picture him: where he would be and at what time of the day. She knew what Rome would look like, and what Paolo would look like, walking his walk, parking the car, entering Nandos. She wondered if their song were still on the jukebox and if he ever played it. She could see other women noticing him, smiling and throwing glances at him, responding to his elegant, gentle, funny ways as they always did. Sight unseen, Sally would get jealous to her knees.

But then she would laugh when she remembered how he gave names to his neckties , and stories to go with them.

"I call this one 'Thoughts on a Dark Night'," Paolo informed her.

The dreams were increasing. So were the days when Sally was useless to do anything else but think about Paolo. Sally was making enough money now to be able, once in a while, to afford the colossally expensive phone calls to Rome. Yet even though they cost a fortune they were still difficult to do. First, she needed to make a reservation with the international operator before she could even make the call, and then the connections would be hollow and full of static feedback.

Bur actually speaking to each other was so much more satisfying for them both than a letter. A letter sometimes took two weeks to arrive and by that time whatever it contained had become a false reality.

They were always so happy to talk to each other that at first they either sputtered nonsense, or screamed the news about daily life, or just kept saying "I miss you. I love you." over and over until it would be ridiculous to say it anymore. These calls made Sally very elated, but the crashing down was very bad. She would be morose and nearly helpless for days after.

Sally had discussed Paolo's resettling in New York several times in her letters. He would always respond with how events were progressing in Rome. Now Sally shouted across the Atlantic Ocean, trying to finally get a direct answer to her constant badgering.

"Paolo, please come over. At least give it a try....just think what an adventure it could be for you and Tonino, even if you don't want to stay." Sally was convinced that once Paolo and Tonino were in New York everyone would live happily ever after.

"Sally, I'm not coming to New York."

"But why!!!"

"I can't. This is my life. My family is here. My friends are here. My work is here. Tonino is in school here. Rome is not a postcard, it's my home town. I'm a Roman and I don't want to be anything else."

"If you loved me you would come," Sally said.

"If you loved me, you would have stayed," Paolo answered.

Sally got a wave of panic. "But this is _my_ life, too," she said. " _My_ family, friends and work are here. It's _my_ hometown!"

"I know. And I understand," Paolo said before they had to hang up.

Sally could not believe it: he wasn't coming!! She had been positive that she could eventually convince him that the three of them could have a better life here. Anyone else would have jumped at the chance, she thought.

Maybe she would not have left Rome if she thought she would not be able to entice Paolo to come to New York. And now all the months that had gone by were turning into a year. Paolo's letters were becoming shorter and fewer and far between.

What should I do? Sally wondered. Once the rebuilding of her life in New York was complete, she never expected to have to choose a life without Paolo in it.

### CHAPTER SIXTY ONE

A life in New York without Paolo? Forever?

Impossible!

A life back in Rome?

Impossible, too. How could she go back to whatever it was that pushed her away?

What was it, anyway, Sally asked herself, that made me--forced me--to leave? She couldn't put her finger on it anymore.

"I guess I needed something better," she told Ruth, "than a country where all you can do is go out to eat!"

"I think you could do more than that," Ruth reminded her.

Yes. Yes. Sally knew. "But if I go back, I'll have his life. Not my life. Not even "our" life."

"Don't you like his life?" Ruth asked.

Sally thought about it. "I need the freedom. Here." Sally was torn apart: she needed New York for her mind, and Rome for her soul. The difficulty was that neither place was enough without the other.

"At the time I left," she told Ruth, "the solution seemed so clear. But the consequences weren't."

Now, when would she ever see Paolo again if he weren't coming to New York? She had been surviving on the mistaken impression that she and New York--no, America itself-- would convince Paolo to come. Now there was no such impression. He wasn't coming, so what happened or didn't happen next was in her hands. Again.

He kept telling her that his dream as well as hers was to be together again. Yet it was the same old business of Paolo letting other people make the decision about what they should do, with no help from him and he just riding along on whatever happened as a result. This infuriated Sally.

She didn't know if she loved Paolo anymore, or hated him.

### CHAPTER SIXTY TWO

Now and then a man that Sally met, or saw, would startle her heart. The sweet masculinity of him would leave her with the lingering taste of possibility without probability. She often felt that way when she came upon trees growing in the concrete city, or a house at twilight when the lights first go on: some things that she wanted more of in her life but that she would forgo for other choices. But what choice now?

The novelty of the city's scattered, frenetic pace was wearing thin. "Everything seems empty," she said to Ruth. In her growing sadness the lifestyle of New Yorkers seemed superficial. America's need to make things happen without serious thought seemed immature, and worse, destructive. The energy she loved was turning ugly. Viet Nam, Drugs, Graffitti, Discrimination. Pollution, Crime. Continued assassinations: Martin Luther King. Bobby Kennedy. Kent State.

But it wasn't just the world around her that was making Sally miserable. It was her world within. When Sally stopped running, she realized the sadness for Paolo had never left her. She realized that no matter what she did to create a life back in New York, or how successful she was at it, that it was too late. It was no longer her life. Rome had seen to that.

It was crazy, but there was no denying it. She had to go back. She had to take the risk. Paolo had once told her "You don't take risks." Sally had bristled, "Don't take risks! What do you think I'm doing here on my own in a foreign country!" "I mean risks of the heart," he said.

Maybe he was right. Maybe she had to face the truth of her own fears. It was no longer just a case of wanting Paolo. She _needed_ him. She had little patience with people who wouldn't go after what they needed and therefore denied that they needed it. And now she had become one of them. But she was not going to let herself be. She would give it all up and go back.

She would admit her mistake and even deal with the expected harsh judgment of family and friends. And of herself. Yes, she would go back, and this time she would stay.

### CHAPTER SIXTY THREE

"Paolo," Sally said over the scratchy phone line, "I'm planning to return to Rome."

"Wonderful!" Paolo exclaimed. "When are you coming? How long will you stay?"

"No, not for a visit. For good. For us to be together again."

"Really!?" Paolo said, "Why? What happened?"

"Nothing happened. I just realize I don't want to live without you, so I'll have to be where you are."

"This is sort of sudden."

"Don't you want me to come back!?" Sally cried.

"Sally, it's been so long!"

"Yes, I know. But we still love each other. We can pick up again and this time really be together."

"If we do all that, how do I know you will stay this time?"

"I wouldn't go through all this, giving up my life here for good if I wasn't going to stay."

"How come you always get to choose what to do? When to go, when to come..?" Paolo asked her. Sally could tell he had become a little angry. "This time **I** need to think about it," he said. "I'll let you know."

Sally was sick with fear. Paolo did not seem the same. And she was so far away, she felt helpless. Is he right, she asked herself. Do I always do what I want to do? But Sally didn't really think that's what she always did. She never said to herself: "This is what I want to do, and only what I want to do." In her mind it seemed that her decisions were influenced by other, outside events, as well as the actions--and more importantly, the inactions--of others. Well, maybe I don't always do what others want, but if they don't do or say anything how can I know what they want?

She was mad at herself for being so stubborn, so blind, and so dense. But she was devastated by Paolo's coldness. When did that happen?!

But what could she expect, she tried to reason, after so long? It didn't seem so long to her. Maybe because she always had the hope of him being here. But he apparently had lived all this time with the simple truth that she was gone.

The pain of what seemed like Paolo's sudden refusal of her was so bad that Sally lived half suspended outside of herself in a kind of shock, while the other half went through the motions of daily living. Barely.

A few days later, Paolo called. "Cara mia, I'm so sorry for the way I reacted. I was just surprised. It was something I didn't expect and was not prepared for. Your coming back to Rome has been my dearest wish. Please come back. Is it too late?"

"No, No. It isn't!" Sally cried with joy, "I'll come back!"

"I have to warn you, though, "Paolo said," Things are very different. And very difficult...."

"I don't care." Sally said, "Whatever it is, if we are together, we can handle it. We can handle anything together."

"Yes." Paolo said, "Yes."

They agreed that she should return in the fall, and live with him, Tonino and Grandma, who often asked about Sally and would be glad to have her back. Sally made a familiar plan: what belongings she would take, or send by sea; when she would pack and ship. This time all her affairs would be cleared up before she left and she would fly. She scheduled her flight, picked a day several weeks before departure when she would quit her job, and thought about how she would tell her family and friends. Ruth already knew she would leave.

"I'll miss you terribly," Ruth said, "but at least I know where I'll be spending my vacations. Not everyone has a friend with a house in Rome."

Sally was probably the happiest person in the world. And the most frightened. Have I really agreed to completely and permanently change my life after all? To put it completely in Paolo's hands? She found it hard to believe. But she knew she must do it.

Sally finally wrote her letter of resignation at the office , giving herself plenty of time to finish up her work, and still have some left over for packing, for last minute details, and for saying good-by to everyone.

"If you change your mind, you can stay." her boss told her.

"I can't change my mind again," Sally laughed, "They'll put me in the loony bin!"

Sally was completing a report at the office when the phone rang. It was Paolo. He had the office number, but he never called her there. "Ciao, sweetheart," she yelled into the phone, her heart as always thrilled at the sound of his voice. She closed the office door. No one would understand what she was saying in Italian, but she would have to speak very loudly. "How are you, my love," Sally said.

Paolo was matter of fact. "Look, Sally, I've been thinking about it. It's impossible for you to come back. I didn't tell you before, but I'm involved with someone else. You can't come back."

The feeling of being knocked unconscious seemed to last a long time, but it must have been just milliseconds before she sputtered, "What? I don't understand...?"

"Oh, Sally," Paolo said, "you should not have gone away. I do still love you. You will always be special to me, but these things just happen. I didn't want to tell you because I didn't want to worry you--what could you do so far away-but Tonino has been very ill and I have become very close to Franca, the nurse who is taking care of Tonino. She's devoted to Tonino, and he loves her too. It is almost as if she is keeping him alive. I cannot leave Franca now. Not just for myself. My life is not about me now. It is only about Tonino and this is what is best for all of us. You can't come back ...."

"Wait, Paolo, wait!" Sally cried, "I understand. I do understand. I know this seems right to you now. But you are not thinking clearly because of the circumstances. I love Tonino too and I would never take this--Franca--away from him. But it would be a mistake for both you and her if you stayed with her for these reasons when you really love me, when we really love each other.

We'll work it out. Let me come back. I must see Tonino too if he is so ill. Anyway, I can stay in a pensione while we straighten it all out, bit by bit. Franca wouldn't stop taking care of Tonino because of me, would she?"

"Yes. Yes. Maybe you're right," Paolo said. "Forgive me, Sally. It's been a very difficult time."

"I know," Sally said.

### CHAPTER SIXTY FOUR

Sally was no longer the happiest person in the world. It seemed that in everything she did, she was walking on egg shells. But she had faith in Paolo. And she was determined that although their dream was shadowed, it had to be fought for. She knew he didn't love Franca. He as much as admitted it. Even if Sally had to be in Rome on the sidelines for a while she would do it.

And Tonino. She must see Tonino. They would all get used to her again when she was there. So, Sally kept right on packing. The dread she felt was easing somewhat as the days passed and the solid business of getting ready to go back reassured her.

"I think it's your friend from Rome," her secretary said, as Sally rushed back to her office to pick up the phone. She hesitated a moment. This was the second time Paolo called the office.

"Sally, I've made up my mind. It's too late for us now. It's finished. Don't come. Don't ask. Case closed."

"But, Paolo..."

"No. It's over. Franca and I are going to stay together. I regret any problems I've caused you, but you and I just can't go back after all this time."

"But, Paolo...."

"I don't want to talk about it. There is nothing more to say. I can't handle it now. Sally. I'm sorry."

Sally left the office in the middle of the day to go home. She told them it was a personal emergency. And it was. For nearly the entire weekend, Sally sat staring blankly out the window, holding on to hot cups of tea. She couldn't quite grasp how life could become so bad after such happy plans.

"I'll get it," Ruth said when the doorbell rang. Ruth cautiously closed the door and brought the telegram to Sally. It was from Paolo.

"Oh, Ruth! Thank heavens! He's come to his senses. I knew he would!"

Sally gleefully tore open the yellow flap and unfolded the page to the sparse, black letters:

TONINO DEAD. PAOLO.

### CHAPTER SIXTY FIVE

Sally developed the worst case of the flu she ever had. In fact Ruth stayed home several days to take care of her. Sally was so bad, Ruth even convinced a neighborhood doctor to make a house call. Sally was running a high temperature, and couldn't keep anything down. Between her shivering, sweating, and being dehydrated, the doctor's visit was not just a reassuring formality.

Time, medicine, and Ruth's care brought Sally through the worst part, but she was still weak and wrung out for many more days. Sally could get over the flu, but she would never get over the loss of both Paolo and Tonino.

Sally knew that if she didn't want to go crazy she would have to weather each of these terrible events in her life a little at a time. She had no choice. She would force herself to start again the slow bloody climb back to a better place.

So many things went through her fuzzy mind as she lay in bed slightly out of touch with reality. So that's what was going on, Sally thought. Tonino was dying and Paolo couldn't let Franca go. He needs time. Just like I need time. He needs time for the initial shock to pass and to see that since he doesn't need Franca to nurse Tonino anymore, he will eventually be able to listen to his own heart.

And come back to Sally.

Sally would give Paolo some time, but not too much. She had it all mapped out.

Her boss gladly let her keep her job. "I never sent the resignation letter to personnel," he told her. "I figured it was one of those temporary foreign romances anyway." Sally winced, but didn't dispute him. She was glad his mistaken judgment made life a little easier for her. At least for awhile.

Most everyone was very kind to Sally in her grief, although many people didn't understand it, since they knew little of her former life. They all knew it would pass and that Sally would finally get on with her life in New York, since she didn't have any other option.

Sally thought she had one more option. Seeing Paolo in person.

### CHAPTER SIXTY SIX

How different everything will be, she realized as the taxi left the airport and headed towards Rome. This will be the first time I'll be in Rome when Paolo doesn't love me, Sally thought to herself. But I don't believe it! He can't have stopped loving me. He just needs to see me again. He just needs to know for sure that I'll stay.

Sally would stay.

She decided that if she could make it work again with Paolo, and if he wanted her to stay, she would just drop everything. She had already spoken to Ruth, and Ruth agreed to help her straighten things out in New York, if need be. She would have Sally's things sent over, find her important papers, and sell her car. Sally could quit her job by phone. It wouldn't be easy, but it wouldn't be the end of the world. Paolo's wanting her to stay, and her not staying again would be the end of the world. Her whole body was taut with wishing for things to be the way they once were, and not knowing if they ever could be.

Yet in spite of this overwhelming longing, other feelings started to creep in.

As the taxi neared the city, Sally began to get butterflies in her stomach at the mere anticipation of being in her once- adored Rome. In Rome for Rome's sake. Something like joy was actually in her heart as she knew that she would be inserted back into Roman life, with all the other people she loved and who also loved her, and were eagerly awaiting her return. Mario and Elena had married and now lived in a large apartment conveniently located in the center of Rome. She would be staying with them, and she knew they would support her in her effort to go back with Paolo.

Paolo also expected her, but Sally did not know what to expect from Paolo.

### CHAPTER SIXTY SEVEN

Tonino's illness and death had, obviously and understandably, left Paolo a little chaotic and scattered. That could already be seen in his first wanting her back, then not wanting her back, then wanting her again, and finally saying "no," all in one week.

She knew he needed time to get hold of himself. And also to see that she was no longer just a memory that was 3,000 miles away. She knew he would not refuse to see her. Even in his confused grief he was too kind to boycott her just to avoid dealing with her.

When Sally arrived in Rome, Paolo did not boycott her.

Sally did not have to seek out Paolo. He called her everyday. In fact, he wanted to be with Sally almost constantly. But he protected himself by always having Franca at his side. He presented Franca to Sally as if their coupling was an accomplished fact, without actually declaring that it was.

Paolo and Franca invited Sally out almost everywhere. But without Franca realizing it, Paolo retraced the steps of his and Sally's former life together. Paolo hardly ever took his sorrowful eyes off Sally. Franca, who was beginning to seem like a third wheel, never took her wary eyes off Paolo. It was hard to know what Franca was thinking since she hardly ever spoke. But she also never left Paolo alone with Sally. And Paolo never sought to be alone with Sally. Even when Paolo would drive Sally home, Franca would come with them, as Paolo accompanied Sally the few feet to the front door. Sally was starting to go crazy.

Now that she and Paolo were face to face, for Sally it was like falling in love all over again. Except this time it felt as if there were a glass wall between them. It seemed unnatural that he was standing there in front of her and not taking her in his arms, as always. Unnatural that they would sit across from each other in a restaurant and that he wouldn't softly cover her hand with his, as always. Unnatural that they were not talking freely about everything that came into their mind, as always.

Unnatural that they were not making joyful love, as always.

Sally was close to Paolo again, but he was far away.

She couldn't tell if Paolo wanted to be with her, but out of duty to Franca, couldn't be. Or whether he was trying to make it gently, yet absolutely, clear that from now on it was Paolo and Franca. Was he telling Sally that she could accept this, and be with them both as a friend? Or reject it and become an outsider?

Sally didn't want to push Paolo into a corner yet by asking him to explain the mixed messages and define the situation.

Because she loved him, she couldn't cause him more overt pressure and pain at this time. And in her heart she knew that she had caused this separation herself by leaving Rome. She almost felt that Paolo was slightly justified in not giving her an easy time of it. After all, she could not expect him to push his whole life aside now and just fall into her arms.

But the real reason she didn't push him was out of fear. If he actually said 'no'---whether he knew if he meant it or not---there would probably be no turning back. But if things were left vague, perhaps even in this short time, he would get used to her again, and realize he loved her after all.

He couldn't possibly love Franca, sweet and quiet as she was. Sally thought Franca must be either very stupid or very clever to let Paolo spend so much time together with her. Or Franca was just very good. That's what everyone said.

Whenever Sally was alone with one of Paolo's friends, once their mutual friends, the conversation was eerily the same:

"Ah, Sally! What a shame this all turned out to be. You loved each other so much....if only you had stayed...if only Tonino had been a healthy child...but what can you do? It's strange how different she is from you. But, yes, it's true, very true. She's such a good soul. And she is devoted to Paolo. Nothing is too much to ask her to do. Oh, she was wonderful when Tonino was sick. She nursed him so well. All through it. And when he died, Paolo couldn't have gone on without her. No, it's a pity. She's not the type of woman you are, but, well, she's a good soul."

As the days went by, it got easier for Sally to believe that Franca truly was.

### CHAPTER SIXTY EIGHT

For some reason, Paolo decided to throw a big party for Sally. All of their mutual friends and all of Sally's friends were invited. Sally was thrilled by this encouraging gesture of affection. She knew things were gathering steam into whatever direction they were going to go.

The party was a huge success. She had not been to Paolo and Tonino's home since she had arrived back in Rome. That home where so much love and laughter and closeness had developed between the three of them.

Suddenly, Sally and Paolo found themselves alone for the first time, in the long corridor that ran between the rooms. Paolo immediately began talking to Sally about Tonino, as if starting in the middle of a conversation he had already been having with her. He spoke about Tonino alive, not dead. He seemed happy to be remembering him. He brought Sally up to date on Tonino's most recent "boy" activities, and on his stamps and his paintings.

"Tonino had started to paint a lot," Paolo said. "Would you like to see some of what he did?"

"I really would," Sally said.

No one saw Paolo open the door to Tonino's room, or he and Sally enter as he closed the door behind them. The room was almost as Sally had remembered it, and the sharp pain of a memory so strong that it became physical overtook her. She could no longer push away the fact that Tonino was not there and never would be again.

They were both quiet as Paolo walked around the room, straightened a few things, and picked up some of the boy's watercolor paintings. The pictures were very good for an eleven year old, and true to his heritage, they were mostly of Rome.

One of the best was of Ponte Milvio. This ancient bridge had carried victorious Roman armies over the Tiber River thousands of years ago. The bridge was still standing and was just around the corner from their apartment. It was second nature to the young Tonino to appreciate its beauty and history, even though automobiles crossed it now. Paolo and Sally discussed the painting almost as art critics, talking about light, form, and color. It was a way to hold on to their sanity.

The experience was becoming too powerful for them both, so Paolo gently opened the door and they left the quiet room. They were in a slight daze as they attempted to re-enter the noisy, smoky world of the party.

Franca saw them come out of the closed room. As Sally and Paolo dispersed among the guests, Franca found her way to Sally's side.

### CHAPTER SIXTY NINE

"I want to thank you, "Franca told Sally. "This is the first time Paolo has been able to go into that locked room since Tonino died six months ago. And I think it was important for Paolo to go in there with you."

Now Sally knew for sure. Franca truly was simple and good. Sally could not assume that Paolo wanted to leave her for someone as difficult and erratic as Sally saw herself. This realization totally reversed Sally's assumptions about Franca's relationship with Paolo, and sent her into an emotional tailspin.

Now, she could barely get through her own party. She was immune to the charm and affection of her friends. She didn't care that she was in Rome. Sally hadn't wanted to push Paolo into a corner, but now she felt she was in one. And she had to get out, once and for all.

\---------

The next day Sally called Paolo at his office. She assumed Franca did not also accompany him to work everyday. "Hi," she said when he took her call.

"Ah, Sally!" Paolo responded with enthusiasm.

"Listen," she said. "I need to talk to you."

"Of course. We can all have dinner tonight if you're free."

"No. Alone. I need to talk to you alone." Sally realized she was nearly hysterical.

"OK.....but I'm busy until.....," Paolo said uneasily, as if he always suspected he would have to have this conversation at some time. Sally's composure was starting to break. It had all been too much for her. She had held too much in too tightly for too long.

"Now!" she said. "I need to talk to you now! Immediately. Can I come to your office?"

"Well, I ..." Paolo started to say.

"It will be short. One or two things. Five minutes," she said firmly, changing to a clipped businesslike manner. Sally told herself she just wanted him to answer yes or no. Could they pick up where they left off? Or even start again? Yes or no.

"Sure," Paolo said. "Why don't you come by in half an hour. I should have a few minutes then."

"Fine."

### CHAPTER SEVENTY

Paolo had gotten a new job since she was gone. The Italian government, although constantly falling, bore no resemblance to Humpty-Dumpty because it kept putting itself back together again. And again and again.

This time the political musical chairs put Paolo in the Maritime Ministry where he ran the press information office. The large, ornate white marble building was very impressive with its long cool hallways and high ceilings.

Paolo's office was quite official looking, with tall windows, carpeting, a wide wooden desk, and two couches. Sally sat on one of the green couches, and was surprised to see that Paolo took the chair opposite, instead of by her side.

Paolo was nervous. This annoyed Sally. But her emotions were ricocheting off walls anyway, and this one got lost in the avalanche of all the others.

She felt love and longing. Desire and frustration. Anger. Shame that she had to ask him about what he should make clear. Fear that he would say no. And even fear that he would say yes, with its new set of problems.

Now that she was in his high-ranking office, she felt stupid that she had once misjudged his capabilities to put a life together. And then she felt even more stupid that she had once used his being out of work as a reason for her to return to America. It had not been a substantial reason. In fact, none of her previous reasoning and subsequent actions were substantial. They all had the strength and force of smoke. She knew in an instant that more than a year ago she made what was turning out to be a monumental mistake. A mistake she wanted desperately to erase, but didn't seem able to.

Sally looked at Paolo and suddenly didn't know where to start. And she noticed that the usually glib, wise, suave, and devoted Paolo wasn't going to help her out. In fact, he looked like he wished she weren't there.

In spite of all Sally's good intentions, the tears started rolling down her cheeks. She had not even said anything yet. Paolo looked uneasily at his office door and got up and closed it. He was preparing for the worst. Sally tried to talk. By now she was really crying and wound up saying, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do this. I'm sorry."

"It's ok," Paolo said in a way that Sally knew it was not. He looked at his watch. Sally breathed in and tried to stop. She managed to say something like, "I'll make this quick...."But then she had to blow her nose before she could talk.

She was trying to deny to herself that Paolo was being distant and cold--the Paolo that had wooed her intensely and adored her extravagantly, that had been with her intimately, sharing everything everyday for two years--was behaving like a discomforted stranger.

"I just want to know what happened," Sally struggled. "Why did you change your mind? You don't really love Franca, do you? So, why can't we be together like before? "

"So, now you can talk about being together, now when it suits you," Paolo said without emotion. "Where were you when I needed you? Where were you at the worst time of my life?"

"I know. I know. I was wrong and very stupid. I understand you feel I had deserted you. But it was never like that. Don't you remember we always said we would be back together again. But even though I have no right to ask, can't I be forgiven? Yes, I was away during the worst time for you. And worst times make for desperate choices. But you don't have to keep them. We can make a fresh start . Together, we can make it the way it was--the best time, again."

"It's more complicated than that," Paolo said.

"It's only complicated if you want it to be. It can be simple if you make it," Sally said.

"That's very American," Paolo said with a slight bit of scolding.

"Paolo, please," Sally said. "The love we had together can't be gone. It's not gone, is it?

Now that we can have it again, why would you not let it be once more?"

For a moment, Paolo seemed helpless. He hesitated. "That's just the way it is," he finally answered. In typical Italian fashion, he was avoiding the logical response of cause and effect and going for fatalism instead, using a cosmic shrug as the wall through which no questions or answers could penetrate. "That's just the way it is," he repeated.

When finally confronted with this wall, Sally's hysteria broke through, and with it flooded a torrent of sobs, the ceaseless sobs of a child in pain who can't understand. The sobs of human disappointment from the beginning of time. Uncontrollable sobs, sobs that shook her whole body. Sobs that shuddered the still air with their sounds. Sobs that made Sally blind and deaf. She couldn't see Paolo or the room. Couldn't hear the city or the clock. Sobs that scared Paolo.

He moved over to the couch and tried to comfort her. It didn't work. For Sally it was as though he didn't exist, as if this pain was between her and herself. Her sobbing became so bad that she had trouble breathing. Paolo started to get a little angry.

"Stop it, Sally. Stop it. This is not necessary. You shouldn't do this. It doesn't become you. You're not this kind of person. My life has changed. You and I were once together and now we are not....But you are still important to me. We will always be friends. I promise."

Like that, Sally thought. Over like that: "We were once together and now we are not."

So simple. So clear. The chilling "...we will always be friends." Love's death sentence. The sobbing made Sally sick and the words made Sally cold. No more "what if..." or "if only I could.." No more wrestling with shoulds and should nots. It was out of her hands. She had tried to take control of her life and now the life she really wanted was out of her control. "We were together and now we are not. We will always be friends...."

Oh, no we won't! Sally thought angrily to herself. But she looked at Paolo and saw that face, the face that had been before her eyes every moment for so long she couldn't remember when it wasn't there. How could she let that face go? She was his friend. That's what love was.

Sally shook her head in agreement as Paolo gave her his handkerchief and looked first at his watch and then at the office door. Sally knew she had to go. She was weak and in a daze. She would do anything anyone told her to do.

"Look, cara," Paolo said softly, stroking her shoulder, "This is not a good place for this. Why don't you go home and make yourself more comfortable and I'll call you later, ok?"

"Ok," she said.

### CHAPTER SEVENTY ONE

Sally knew Paolo would never call again.

She didn't care. She didn't care about anything. Except getting back to the apartment that Marco and Elena always left cool, dark, and empty during the day. She would take a nap and then wake up in about an hour and start her new life. It would be ok.

She knew she would not...could not... fight for Paolo. Because of Tonino's death, he wasn't even a whole person anymore, never mind a man who might love her again.

And didn't she deserve to lose him? She left him. Stunned him by walking away from him one fine day. Deserted him when he had no job and a dying child. Didn't she stay in New York longer than she said she would? Gone more than a year, leaving him alone with his terrible spring.

No, obviously not alone. Well, what did she expect? He had a right to do the best thing for himself in the life she left him in.

She did not miss the irony of how afraid she had once been that he would break her heart. Now she thought: I broke my own heart. He loved me and I left. And now it was all too complicated.

Sally managed to get to her room before the sobbing started again. And when she cried until it seemed there was no more, there was still more. She probably could have cried for the rest of her life, but she finally got tired of it and stopped. Her whole body was thoroughly exhausted. Sally must have been asleep for several hours when Elena woke her with a knock on the door.

"I'm sorry to disturb you, cara," Elena said. She came in and sat beside Sally on the bed and stroked her swollen cheek, "but we were worried about you. Are you alright?"

"Yes," Sally said, although she didn't know how she was. It was dark. Sally could smell the rich aroma of an Italian dinner cooking. The last thing she wanted to do now was eat.

"Paolo is on the phone," Elena said. "It's the third time he called. He asked me to....wake you." Sally knew Elena meant to say "to see that nothing was wrong."

"Do you want to talk to him now?" Elena asked.

"Sure," Sally said, without much interest. As Sally headed for the one phone in the living room, Marco met her in the hall and silently put his arms around her in a supportive hug.

"Ciao, Paolo," Sally said wearily.

"Cara mia. I'm so sorry that you are so upset about all this. I did not expect that you would feel this way. You are so strong."

Strong? Sally thought. Ah, yes, strong. They have been saying that for years. Sally always wondered what men really meant when they said that about her. It was usually said as a compliment, yet they seemed to think it was a good reason to make her do without them. If they wanted a partner in life, why wouldn't they want someone strong? Sometimes when they said Sally was strong, what they meant was that she wanted control. She did. But not over anyone else. Only over her own life. Why was this so bad? Except, that if she had control over her own life, it meant that they didn't control her. She guessed that was the problem.

Sally wasn't in any condition to have a real conversation, so she just told Paolo, "I'm alright."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

Paolo hesitated. "Listen, I know this may be the wrong time to ask you, but I thought, before you go back to New York, well, I don't know if you want to, but maybe...sometime...you'd like to go with us to....the cemetery." Sally almost laughed. Paolo continued.

"I mean, you and Tonino were so.....Well, I just thought it might be important to you."

"I'm leaving Friday," Sally said.

"Ah, yes, Friday! Already!" Paolo said. He thought for a moment. "Maybe then we could go tomorrow?" Sally thought, Yes. I should go. I'll say goodbye to everything and everyone and get it all over with forever.

"Maybe," Sally told Paolo.

### CHAPTER SEVENTY TWO

In all her time in Rome, Sally had never been to an Italian cemetery. But she already knew that they were different from those in the United States.

This small burial ground was on the outskirts of the city and was best known for its winding promenade flanked by rows of tall and lovely umbrella pine trees.

Paolo parked the car and the three of them began the walk down the narrow path between the file cabinet drawers of tombs stacked one on top of the other. Most of these file-like drawers had a little ledge where flowers, a votive candle, and usually a picture of the person inside were displayed. Walking down the narrow aisles was an eerie experience of visiting those who were dead but seemed alive.

The variety of faces looking out at them as they passed proved that death, indeed, had an even hand. There were hundreds of photos of men, women and children of all shapes, sizes, and ages. Some photos were solemn turn-of-the-century portraits of people who, to the modern eye, seemed to be dressed in costume. Very few of these ledges had flowers. Probably everyone who knew the people in the photos was gone too.

Sally wondered if the pictures of pretty women and handsome men indicated that they were in their prime when brought to these strange shelves. Or if, like old movie stars that die, these were the young faces they were best remembered by. It occurred to Sally that when they got to his grave, there would probably be a picture of Tonino.

"We're almost there," Paolo told her.

Suddenly Sally was sorry she had come. All day she had managed to avoid reality. By sleeping late. By lingering over coffee in an out-of-the way cafe. Putting her face up to the sunny sky and thinking of nothing. But now she was about to offer herself up to yet another blow to the heart. She would be pulled back into the pain she had been avoiding since yesterday, and pushed forward into the pain yet to come. She wasn't sure she could do this.

Sally lagged behind. The sympathetic Franca went slightly ahead, while Paolo walked with Sally. Then the three of them stopped. Sally's eyes searched for Tonino's face but couldn't find it.

"No picture," Paolo said.

No, he wouldn't, Sally thought. How else could he bear it. To her surprise she was disappointed that Tonino was not visibly there. Paolo didn't even look at the grave, but took Franca's elbow and said to Sally, "We want to visit Franca's aunt while we're here. We'll come back for you in a little while."

Dear Paolo, Sally thought and almost cried again.

But she didn't.

Not even for Tonino.

If only she had believed that Tonino would die. Imagine if she had acknowledged the truth. Would she have just left him there, looking at the floor when she said goodbye. Would she have left at all? Would she have given up their quiet moments alone together in that green Roman light, studying his stamp collection, where Sally would pretend the stamps were beautiful, and then be surprised they were.

She had known so little about these things: fathers, sons, and death. Now she knew that stamps are kept; it's love and death once done that cannot be saved.

Suddenly she could hear the sound of Paolo and Franca returning and this broke the spell of her difficult reverie. Sally hoped that now they could go since she could not remain any longer, but she knew she would probably have to wait. Paolo and Franca would no doubt want to stay with Tonino a little while at least.

As they approached, Sally could see Paolo's solemn face contort with a flash of pain. He did not look at the grave. He only put his hand lightly on Sally's shoulder and then walked straight ahead as the two women left the cemetery single file behind him.

"So, you're leaving tomorrow," Paolo stated flatly as the trio drove back to Marco and Elena's apartment. Both Paolo and Franca walked Sally the few feet from the car to the apartment door.

About a half hour later, Paolo telephoned

"It occurred to me that you might need a ride to the airport," Paolo said.

"I was planning to take a taxi."

"Don't be silly. It costs too much. I can drive you."

"That's not necessary."

"I know. I want to."

Sally thought that she had had enough of the three of them, but it would soon all be over. And she was very tired. Almost too tired to organize herself. The re-packing, ordering a cab, and fighting with her own bags seemed overwhelming at the moment.

"That would be very helpful. Thank you, Paolo," Sally said.

### CHAPTER SEVENTY THREE

The next morning after a deep sleep, Sally was feeling a little stronger as she packed. While most of her emotions were suspended for safekeeping until she could deal with them at a better time, she was at least comforted by the fact that she was going home.

How strange the last few years have been, she thought. First, leaving Rome to go back to a New York life that no longer existed. Then leaving New York for an old life in Rome that no longer exists. And now back again to a life of...what? To a life that would have to start again from where she was. Yes, she thought. Start again. The slow, bloody climb back to a better place.

And she wasn't going back entirely empty hearted. She had Tonino tucked away in there, riding softly on her last memories of him as a bright, talented, funny child who was her pal. She obviously had Paolo too if she would accept him in his new form. She would, for as long as she could stand it, and then maybe she'd be ready to let him go. Maybe she would never let him go. Maybe she would hear the voice of his wise love for the rest of her life.

Paolo came up to the apartment for her bags. Sally had already hugged Marco and Elena goodbye early that morning before they left for work. Together, Sally and Paolo did the busy work of counting bags, turning off lights, and locking up.

On the elevator going down to the car they were silent, but Paolo never took his eyes off her. Finally, he gently buttoned an undone button in the middle of her jacket that had gone unnoticed. "A woman who looks as good as you do, doesn't want to spoil it," he explained, smiling.

The automobile was empty. There would be just the two of them. Ah! Sally thought. Of course. It's safe for them now. Sally pushed away the sorry thought that her departure was probably a relief for them, by being glad that at least one more time in her life she could enjoy being alone with Paolo. Even though all that could be said had already been said.

The finality of the trip relaxed Sally. She even laughed a few times at Paolo's strange wit. She and Paolo could always make each other laugh with their ironical, absurdist sense of humor. Sally had noticed that Franca never laughed at Paolo's droll observations. She was convinced that Franca didn't understand them.

When they arrived at the airport, they had some extra time and decided to park the car first, and then walk on this beautiful day to the terminal. They got a spot not too far away and Paolo carried the bags to check in. At the counter they processed the luggage without delay.

Now there was still lots of time so Sally suggested they get some more fresh air as she walked Paolo back to the car. They stood in the sun by the car door, but Paolo said it was too soon to say goodbye so he suggested that he walk her back to the terminal. On the way back they both laughed so hard they could hardly go forward.

But back at the terminal they saw that time was running out. They stood looking at each other. Sally's heart was pounding with longing and regret. She wanted to throw herself into Paolo's arms and cling there forever. But Paolo had behaved so strangely throughout this whole trip that she was totally confused as to what he would allow her to do. She didn't want to leave Rome with the indelible impression of Paolo pushing her away from him.

Paolo's face became very serious and his sad brown eyes began to get a little misty. Suddenly, and for the first time in more than a year, he took Sally in his arms and enclosed her whole body against his chest. Her face was buried in his neck. She felt her lips on his familiar skin, and could smell the beloved combination of French tobacco and aftershave. She felt his body shake.

"Am I making a mistake?!" Paolo cried. "Should I stop you?! By letting you go, am I making a mistake??"

Sally couldn't believe it! It wasn't too late! She knew her instincts were right: he did still love her! They would remain together forever after all!

"Yes!" she said. "Yes! Yes! It would be! A big mistake. One we might never recover from!"

Paolo buried his face in her hair. He held her very tightly without moving. He was silent for a long time. Finally, he pulled himself together, moved back at arms length and put both his hands on her shoulders. His face had the same look as when he walked by Tonino's grave. He took a deep breath and in a hardly audible voice he said with teeth-gritting determination:

"Then I will have to live so that letting you go is not a mistake. I will have to make sure it is not a mistake."

Since he couldn't stand to look at the now heartsick and dumb stricken Sally, Paolo turned and walked away.

THE END

(more)
EPILOGUE

"You look wonderful, Sally," Franca said as she hugged her, "you haven't changed in all these....how many? eleven?... years!"

"Neither have you!" Sally answered warmly.

They were having lunch, just the two of them, in a small restaurant that was tucked away in one of Rome's many ancient alleyways. One of those neighborhood places that only the Romans knew about. Paolo would meet them later and then they would all go back to her hotel to pick up Brian.

Brian was on the phone with New York, trying to solve one crisis or another. Brian was always in crisis. But Sally loved his energy, the fact that he was into everything. That he felt he could do anything, and usually did. Brian had dreams and visions for himself and he made them come true.

They had been together now for nine years. Nine tumultuous years that ran the gamut between intense devotion and infidelity. Between broken engagements, trial separations, and new reconciliations. Between the excitement of always being in motion, and the loneliness that Brian's constant activity sometimes caused her.

"Well, _you and I_ may not have changed in the past decade," Sally declared to Franca, "but Rome certainly has."

"Yes," Franca said, "Isn't it terrible. So much traffic. So much graffiti and upheaval. You wouldn't believe how different Rome has become since you lived here." One difference, Sally mused, was that divorce had become legal and now Paolo and Franca were married.

"But I have to admit, in spite of all," Sally said, "It's still beautiful."

"Rome will always be beautiful." Franca pointed out, reverting to her true Roman character.

Sally and Brian would not be in Rome nearly long enough as far as Sally was concerned. They had so much to see. She wanted to take him through all her old haunts, to meet all her old friends. Marco and Elena were having them to dinner that night on their terrace overlooking the medieval rooftops of the city. From there you could just see the dome of St. Peter's Basilica in the background. Brian would love it. This was his first look at Rome, and Sally thought she knew exactly how he would feel.

Sally had not been sure that she wanted to see Paolo--and, of course, Franca--on this trip. But once she was in Rome it was impossible not to call him. For her, Paolo was part of Rome itself.

Paolo was obviously thrilled to hear from her and insisted the four of them get together. By the time they worked out everybody's schedule, it wound up that Sally and Franca should meet first and everyone else would catch up along the way.

"So tell me fast," Sally said jokingly to Franca, "what 's been going on for the past eleven years?" Franca didn't laugh. Franca smiled, but seldom laughed.

"Well," Franca started thoughtfully, "we have a little house in the country now. By the lake."

"Wonderful."

"And I'm working in a gift shop."

"How nice. Are you enjoying it?"

"Very much. I meet people and it gives me something to do." She paused and thought. "Paolo has been with our State Department."

"Yes," Sally said, "he told me on the phone. He said he went to Japan recently. That must have been fascinating. Did you go?"

"No," Franca said.

Sally had developed a genuine liking for Franca, but they didn't have a great deal in common. And what they had in common was a little awkward. Still, Sally could see that Franca was not at all cagey with her, and sometimes even discussed Paolo as if he somehow belonged to both of them.

Franca added: "It's a shame Tonino could not have gone with him. He'd have been a grown man by now."

Sally started at the sudden mention of Tonino. "You both must miss him terribly," Sally said. "I still do."

"We try never to talk about him anymore," Franca said. "Paolo doesn't want to talk about him. He doesn't even like to be around other kids."

"Did you ever think of having another child?" Sally asked hesitantly, thinking only that it might heal some of Paolo's wounds that apparently were still raw, even now.

"I was pregnant last time you were here," Franca told her. "Do you remember that time?"

Sally caught her breath. Remember? How could she forget!

Pregnant! So that was it. She wasn't crazy. She was right. At the time Paolo still did want her. And maybe even would have taken her back, but Franca, the woman who had nursed his now dead son, was pregnant with his new child. No wonder he had behaved the way he had. "I will have to make sure it's not a mistake," he had told her when he let her go.

All these years of wondering why he hadn't had the courage to do what she could see he wanted to do, suddenly became crystal clear to her. Sally got a sharp pain in her chest and took a sip of wine. She must have looked strange, which Franca confused with puzzlement, so she explained: "I lost the baby."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Sally said. "Could you have had another?" She fiercely wanted to have lost Paolo to something you could feel and see. Only a reason as important as another new life would do for her.

"Paolo doesn't want children. He never wants another child."

"What about you?" Sally asked.

Franca shrugged," He won't change his mind. He said he never wants to care about anything that much again in his life."

Sally was sure she had seen that process begin the last time she was in Rome, and that she had been included in it.

What was supposed to have been an amiable lunch with the wife of an old friend was turning into a surprise emotional storm for Sally. Her head was spinning. Her insides were shaking. It was as though more than a decade had not passed. She was filled with "what ifs" and "if onlys." Once more the ironies of fate had a stranglehold and they were choking her.

"Are you alright?" Franca asked.

"I was just thinking about Tonino," Sally lied, although indirectly it was true.

"Try not to talk about him to Paolo," Franca said possessively, which annoyed Sally.

"No, I won't."

The waiter came with their pasta. Sally needed to get a grip, so she used the opportunity to change the subject. "Yum, this looks good! I told Brian he had never really tasted food until he ate in Italy. So far he's only had bad scrambled eggs in the hotel. But Rome will get him yet." Talking about Brian eased her. After all, she had a life of her own now.

Still, sitting across from Franca it was clear that her stubborn belief that Paolo and Franca would never last had been wrong. This made her immensely sad, although she didn't want it to.

She was about to reach for another sip of wine when she saw Paolo enter the restaurant.

He was walking his long-legged walk in a finely cut dark blue suit that fitted his still trim body perfectly. His thick salt and pepper hair was handsomely styled. He was smiling. He looked almost the same except for his sad eyes, which had become slightly hard.

"Sally!" he cried as he rushed to embrace her quickly, kissing her on both cheeks as the Italians do, and then let go. "How good to see you!" He meant it.

Sally wanted to scream.

Paolo went over and sat next to Franca, kissing her lightly on one cheek. "Ciao, cara," he said to her comfortably. Both their rhythms meshed immediately as they discussed what Paolo should order. Paolo took Franca's hand, and then turned his full attention on Sally.

"So tell me fast," he laughed, "what's been going on for the past eleven years."

Sally did not know how she would be able to talk.

Yes, she thought, I see you have managed to live with your mistake after all. But dear God!, she implored to herself, when will I be able to live with mine........!??

#
CODA

So this

is how

I mourn,

who

went

on

loving,

though

once

you and

a now dead

boy

traced

my leaving

on a

map.

I mourn

with the tips

of my

fingers

through

blue

sun-

lit

shirts

as you

say,

"That

was

long

ago."

In Rome

we

are ancient

history

our past

ignored

like

other

ruins,

even

by us.

#######

(more)
Dear Reader

Thank you for sharing this book with me. Please feel free to comment by sending an email to poetpatsy@gmail.com

You may also go to the website www.poemshareandmore.blogspot.com to download FREE links to CHANGES OF HEART, five short stories of change that alter lives for better or worse. On the website you will also find FREE links to the complete poetry collection STAR ON FIRE, and a chapbook on what it is like LIVING WITH THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE.

Thank you and I hope you will enjoy.

Patricia Ryan
