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Edo climbed out of the bus and turned to wait for Samantha. Her eyes were huge. They were not even near the downtown areas yet, the old city, but even the “new” parts of Firenze were often old. He saw her eyes travel along the huge stone bastion wall they had parked beside.
Was she really going to just sit and stare at sculptures all day? His past experience with tourists had been that they rushed about as fast as they could, cramming in as many sites as possible into their one or two days in Florence before dashing off to Rome or Venice in their attempt to see all of Italy in a week. He'd come to understand while living in America that this sort of pace was how many of them lived their daily lives as well, but he'd never liked it. He was more of a wanderer when it came to sightseeing, and would rather take his time on projects to do them right. But even he would not spend an entire day staring at a statue.
But he was also not an art major.
She’d said she had been an art student—had she graduated, or had she quit? Maybe changed majors? Art was hard to make a career in.
They joined the streams of people filing down sidewalks, walking roads still familiar to Edo even after all these years. Soon they were in the middle of one of the many pop-up markets offering purses, journals, belts, sweaters, and all the knick-knacks tourists were suckers for. Samantha largely ignored them, her eyes dashing about, finding the little carved faces on the old water fountains at intersections, and the ironwork on the railings of the balconies.
Soon they entered the true old part of town, the heart of Firenze and the center of her tourism. Even though it was not yet high season for tourists, the streets were already crowded, and as they approached the Duomo, the line for climbing to the top of it extended down the block and wrapped around the church.
Samantha stopped and gaped. Edo tried to see the buildings as she was seeing them, for the first time. The marble work really was awe-inspiring, even for someone who had seen it hundreds of times. The green, white, and rose marble tiles decorated the baptistry near them and the church in front of them, touched all over with gold leaf, and the hundreds of ornate sculptures of saints crowded along the top and carved into the doors really could be studied for days.
He looked back at Samantha again. She had closed her mouth, but her eyes were still wide, and they were flicking rapidly, trying to take everything in. Edo put his hands in his pockets “Take your time,” he said with a smile. “You'll never have your first time seeing it again.”
She glanced at him, saw that he was not teasing, and let out a long, shaky breath that she had apparently been holding. “It's incredible.”
It was. He had forgotten just how incredible this city was. His city was.
Samantha took a few steps forward and nearly got run over by a moped. It beeped its horn, and she scrambled back just as Edo grabbed her arm. “Whoa,” he said, hanging onto her arm still, “maybe don't get too sucked into the experience.”
She laughed, but it was a little breathless. “Good call.” Without thinking about it, Edo tucked her arm through his. “You stare, I’ll steer.”
She stared at him for a moment, as if trying to puzzle something out, but did not take her arm back. Edo wasn't sure why he cared, but he was glad she hadn't.
“So, we should be close, right?”
“You're not at all tempted?” Edo nodded at the massive church before them.
“Of course I am, but I know my priorities. Hopefully I'll have time to see everything, but just in case, I wanted to see the most important things first.”
Edo nodded and led her through the crowds around to the side of the church, through another street, and then she gasped and pulled free of him to run toward the half-enclosed building full of sculptures—the Loggia della Signoria. Edo felt a surge of excitement himself. He wasn't sure why, as he had never been big on statuary himself, but her enthusiasm was contagious. He followed at a slower pace, watching as she came to a halt before a statue of a man holding a struggling woman. She stood there, frozen, until he reached her, and when he did, she had tears in her eyes.
“It's so incredible,” she said, not taking her eyes off the statue. “Giambologna carved this—I mean, look at the details, look how he made the skin look soft where his fingers squeeze her. She sighed. “Pictures do not do it justice.”
Edo looked at the sculpture as if seeing it for the first time. She was right; it was pretty incredible that stone could look so soft. And the feeling of movement there, as though the sculpture had been living and simply frozen — as though it would move any moment. He had never stopped to notice.
“Incredible,” she breathed again. Then she laughed. “I know I'm overusing the word, but I don't know what else to say." She looked around at the other statues—Perseus holding the head of Medusa; Hercules—and then at Edo. Her face was radiant. “I may never leave.”
Edo didn't expect the echoes that came from his past with those words. Echoes of Paola, who had told him she could never leave Italy. He had tried to get her to go to America with him, but she'd been too attached—too scared, he’d thought, but maybe she’d felt this way about their home, a way he’d never begun to understand. “I could never leave,” she had said, standing only a block from here.
Half dazed, Edo looked at Samantha, whose eyes still shone. “I'm going to meet a friend. Shall I come back at lunch?” He barely waited for her nod before he hurried away, ignoring the surprise on her face.