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Black sand beach, barefoot
On lava rock forged by
The bones of ancients
-#118, In Blue Solitudes, S. Wilson-Osaki
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Seb awoke with a surprising amount of energy the next morning for someone who had played poker into the wee hours with three ladies so ruthless they could have fleeced the most notorious card sharps of the Wild West. He’d lost all his shells and the shirt off his back when they insisted on one final round. It was the most fun he’d had in years. Not an exaggeration, and not something he wanted to look too closely at. Instead he made a mental note to pick up a seashell necklace—because he wasn’t above improving his stake through a little subterfuge—and a bottle of the ladies’ favorite gin so he didn’t drink them dry.
After a quick breakfast of sliced peach on toast—the fruit here so ripe and sweet it didn’t need any extra sugar—he set off for his first excursion out of town. Seb picked up an espresso and a sfogliatella from a local café Maya recommended, caffeinating as he strolled down the Via Pietro Capuano. The slender street resembled an alleyway more than a main thoroughfare, but that didn’t stop cars from honking their way up and down the cobblestone street, pushing through tourists and swerving to avoid vendors’ wares. Seb hummed a song from one of his favorite Disney films, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, as he took in the produce and products displayed in front of the stores: necklaces of dried chilies and ropes of fresh pasta, jars of homemade sauce emblazoned with family crests, skimpy knitted shawls and barely there dresses, ceramics painted in garish palettes, lemon-flavored everything. “Anything and everything a chap can unload,” indeed.
Seb lingered awhile in the Piazza del Duomo, with its open-air restaurants and gelato shops, considering where they should go for dinner. He had a late-afternoon G&T pool date with the ladies, then supper at the place of his choosing. He dug out some of the cards Andrea had given him but couldn’t match any to the signs. More likely Andrea had steered him toward places a bit more off the beaten track, like last night’s trattoria. Seb had no quarrel with discovering the “hidden” Amalfi, vowing to do more research on his return from...
Ravello. Renowned for its concert series and as a popular wedding destination. One of the few towns on the Amalfi Coast that sits atop one of the mountains, as opposed to spilling down a ravine toward the beach, as per Henry’s notes. The thought of getting into a moving vehicle that would climb the steep cliffside roads gave him flashbacks to his ride from the airport, but the bus couldn’t be that bad.... could it? The few he had seen while scarfing his pizza the day before were sardine-packed with passengers. Undaunted, he trotted over to the bus stop on the far side of the marina roundabout, having learned the best way to avoid getting hit was to go about your business and let the cars avoid you. Packed though the stop was, Seb reminded himself they weren’t all going to the same place, which was borne out a few minutes later when half the crowd piled into a bus for Salerno. He soon nudged his way into the last window seat on the bus for Ravello, the town Henry called “one of the most picturesque in the world.”
As the bus puttered up inclines so steep skiers would be envious, Seb dug out Henry’s book, reexamining the map he’d drawn and reminding himself of the places to visit. A scribbled anecdote told of a local legend: Owner of the cameo shop says the devil took Jesus to Ravello during his second temptation to show him the beauty of the world’s kingdoms. Seb made a mental note to be on the lookout for any visiting deities.
Wedding ring sketches cluttered the last page, one of which mirrored the design of the ring Seb wore on a chain around his neck. The band of lighter skin around his left ring finger hadn’t come close to fading yet; he’d only made the decision to take it off the day before his trip. He knew Henry had marriage on the brain long before his last stay here—they’d already become engaged and were considering it for their honeymoon. He imagined Henry on this same bus, on this same hill eleven years ago, thinking of him as he now thought of Henry. The circle felt complete.
Seb waited for the flood of sadness to engulf him, for the rising tide of his emotions to carve another chink in the dam of his composure. But this evidence of his husband’s devotion—not that Seb needed more, given that some daydream doodle of him decorated every page of Henry’s notes—comforted rather than depressed. He still felt alone even on the packed bus, still wished he could twine hands with his handsomely rumpled Henry instead of shrinking away from the sweaty tourist in the next seat. He dug the ring out of his T-shirt, slipped it back on his finger. Shut his eyes, searched for that connection his therapist promised would always be with him.
A strong but distant signal reverberated through him. Seb sat with it, in it awhile, remembering. Somehow in this place Henry had loved, it became easier to accept his reality. He kissed the ring and dropped it back into his shirt, ready to follow Henry down the path to adventure.
After shoving through the herd of tourists snapping pictures of the first thing they set eyes on upon exiting the bus, Seb made his way down a long cobblestone tunnel covered with posters of all the great musicians who’d played the Ravello Festival: Richard Wagner, Philip Glass, classical maestros, jazz pioneers, traditional operas, and fusions experiments. White stone buildings, framed as if through a telephoto lens, soon dollied into a cinematic panorama. All roads led to and from the sun-bleached expanse of the central square, flanked by a dozen umbrella-smothered cafés and dominated by the magnificent duomo.
But the real star was the view. From every balcony and patio, verdant slopes strewn with wisteria and valerian plunged toward the endless blue of the sea. On Henry’s recommendation, Seb strolled the gardens of the Villa Rufolo. Through its manicured squares of begonias and thin-trunked shrub trees, craggy structures, and mossy archways, he searched for that often-imitated but nevertheless breathtaking view from the lowest tier. In the foreground a skeletal tree stretched over the twin bell towers of a humble church, its bushy upper branches fanning them with the deference shown a pharaoh. All this was set against a green strip of background coastline and always, always, dreamy blue waters. The urge to dive in was almost impossible to suppress—except when one dared look down.
Spellbound, Seb fell onto a bench and lost several hours until his stomach helpfully reminded him of things more spectacular than even the view: pizza.
One spicy sausage pie and an afternoon of hardcore shopping later—the cameo jewelry store with its craftsman owner being a highlight—Seb had bathed in enough luxury for one day. The vendors of Ravello never met an overpriced cashmere sweater or a hideous ceramic cupid they wouldn’t try to hock, and fending off their predatory grins took some of the fun out of exploring the back-alley boutiques. A stroll along the Terrace of Infinity at the Villa Cimbrone helped center him, another view so inspiring that he picked up a watercolor by a local artist. But the pool, good conversation, and a lemon-slice G&T beckoned something fierce.
The buses, specifically the drivers, had other ideas. Kath had warned him the schedule was about as accurate as a sun dial at predicting their arrival time, so Seb grabbed a spot on a nearby bench—privy to yet another jaw-dropping view—and cracked open his journal. He kept an ear to the traffic as he attempted to put the indelible into words. An hour later he’d crossed out more than he’d written, a concert-sized crowd had gathered at the bus stop, and nary an engine rumble broke through their chatter. Scrambling to get in line, another thirty minutes passed as he went from lightly toasted to slow-roasted, cornered against a rock wall under the hot sun.
The blare of a horn roused the wilting crowd. A bus screeched to a halt not at the stop, but at the back of the line. A wave of passengers, who had been waiting a grand total of ten minutes, burst through the doors as soon as they opened. Seb made it within five feet before the cutoff. Those at the front of the line cursed their displeasure as the bus disappeared down the road. Reconsidering his strategy and how low the sun had sunk, he slathered on more sunscreen while letting group after group pass before him in the new-forming line.
A forty-five-minute podcast later, Seb started when another bus roared past him, halting precisely at the stop, perhaps to appease those who had been waiting nearly three hours. Like him. His “stay at the back of the line” strategy had backfired spectacularly. Seb made every crude gesture known to man at the retreating bus. He polled the English-speaking leftovers, trying to find a space among the groups sharing a cab, but the numbers never added up in his favor. Seb considered walking, then remembered all those hairpin turns and speed-demon drivers, and decided against losing a limb and/or getting sunstroke.
He collapsed onto his original bench, the view far less spectacular now he couldn’t escape it. His head throbbed and his back ached. All the fluids he’d been filling himself with came back to haunt him, cramping his gut. Sweat spackled every inch of his clothing to his skin. If he ever made it back to Amalfi, he swore he wouldn’t step a foot outside the city for the rest of his vacation, the other picturesque coastal towns be damned. At this point he’d blow someone if they’d get him off this mountain.
The toot-toot-toot of a chirpy horn sung out like a choir of angels. When a shadow fell over him, Seb craned his head around to see Andrea waving to him through the window of his SUV. His empty SUV. His air-conditioned SUV. Seb mentally tallied the money left in his wallet as—
“Sebastiano! You wait long? Come, come. I drive you.”
With a whimper of relief that hopefully couldn’t be heard over the hum of the engine, Seb grabbed his backpack, jumped over the bench, and... hesitated. Front or back? He didn’t want to be presumptuous. They weren’t friends, exactly. But it felt wrong, somehow, to sit in the back like some kind of lesser royalty. It was one thing when Andrea chauffeured him from the airport, but this... what was this?
Andrea shook his head, leaned over, and pushed the door to the passenger seat open. A whoosh of cool air breezed across Seb’s skin, and he all but floated in. He may have emitted a postcoital-type sigh as he sank into the leather seat. After shutting the door and belting in, he lolled his head to the side to take in the sight of Andrea, sporty and fresh and lickable as a lollipop. Startling himself with that observation, Seb nevertheless had to admit it was true.
When his wandering eyes finally locked on Andrea’s face, he found him suppressing a laugh.
“Thank you. Sorry about the smell.”
Andrea dismissed Seb’s worries with a brisk wave of his hand. “How long you wait?”
“Mmm... one hundred and sixty-three minutes.”
Andrea swore in Italian.
“The buses must be good for your business.”
He shrugged. “I do airport. Rich people who go Ravello-Amalfi, Amalfi-Positano, they hire a car or a driver for the week.”
“Are you going to the airport now? You must have just dropped somebody off. Should I—”
“No, no. You stay. I...” For the first time in their admittedly short acquaintance, Andrea frowned. Then in perfect, lightly accented English, said, “I have a confession to make.”
Seb heard his jaw crack as it fell open. “You put on that whole paisano routine?”
“I do. For the tourists. It...” He struggled to explain.
“Fulfills expectations?”
“Something like that. But I’m off the clock, and... I just didn’t want to have to pretend with you.”
Seb chuckled. “I’m honored.”
“You should be. I don’t give a lot of free rides.” Despite the teasing, Seb didn’t miss the look of relief that flickered across his face. “Do you want anything before we leave? Espresso? Gelato? Another granita?”
“How do you know I already had one?”
“Lucky guess.”
“And I’m sure they still have them in Amalfi. Please just get me off this rock.”
With a laugh, Andrea shifted the car into gear and nudged his way into the traffic. Though the road out of Ravello was bumper-to-bumper as far as Seb could see—his early escape another casualty of the bus crisis—he didn’t mind that it would be a long way down.
“Bad day?” Andrea inquired once they had slammed to a halt not fifty feet from their original spot.
“Exceptional day almost ruined by transit system.”
“I’ve had a few of those myself. Glad you weren’t disappointed by Ravello.”
“Is anyone ever?” Seb shifted in his seat so he could look at him directly, a view that rivaled those he’d seen that day. “What’s the local perspective?”
“No complaints. It makes a lot of people a lot of money. But the families that live here all have businesses. Amalfi has a tourist section and a normal-person section. Here...”
Seb nodded. “Great place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there.”
“I don’t visit.” They shared a laugh, a look. Seb found himself wishing for more traffic.
“Where did you learn English?”
Andrea snorted. “From listening. This is a tourist town.”
“True. I expected to have Google translate on standby, but everybody here understands the basics. But you’re practically Shakespeare compared to some.”
Another shrug. “I learned from television, travelling, university. You’re right when you say most of the people here only learn enough to get by—or at least the older generation did. But, like me, sons and daughters are taking over from their fathers, and they want a stronger connection to the world.”
“But tourists want old-school Italia.” Seb emphasized his point with his hands in a Godfather-like gesture. “Pizza, pasta, vino, gelato. A little culture and a lot of sunshine.”
Andrea laughed. “Something like that. People come here to relax. They see it as a paradise. To us it’s just home.”
“With the same problems it’s always had.”
“Precisamente.” He flicked a glance Seb’s way, an odd little smile curving his lips. “But you didn’t come here to get away, I think. You came to find something.”
Seb blew out a long breath, wary of the conversation’s serious turn. “I have a reason, but, to tell you the truth, I don’t really know why I came here.” He nudged his backpack with his foot, the weight of Henry’s book against his toes a small reassurance. “I just... I had to do something. Staying at home in my cocoon was all I could manage for a long time. And it had to be that way. I couldn’t just shrug Henry off and keep going, like...”
“No. He was your husband.”
“He was my life. He was everything. And when he...” Seb inhaled a shaky breath but pushed on. No more tears. “In the blink of an eye, everything was gone. Like a sinkhole had swallowed it all up. For a long time—too long—I lay there, buried in the rubble. Waiting for the earth to quake, waiting to be sucked down. But that didn’t happen. So here I am.” Seb lifted his face toward the setting sun. “In paradise.”
He felt a hand cover his own, squeeze tight. He turned back to find Andrea uncharacteristically solemn, starting at him as if seeing him for the first time.
“I’m glad you made it here.”
Seb found his smile. “Me too.”
A horn blast from the car behind broke the moment. Andrea eased away to shift the SUV into gear. The traffic now fluid, they zipped halfway down the mountain until halted by one of Italy’s eternal stoplights. A curious sense of relief washed over Seb as Andrea clicked into park and turned off the engine—the better to save fuel during the ten- to fifteen-minute wait for the other direction to clear the one-lane passageway.
In the cool shadow of the hill, Seb attuned himself to the chirps of foreign birds and the buzz of foreign motors, the rustle of long leaves in stubbier trees and the shuffle of hikers’ boots as they scaled the dusty off-road paths. The scent of sun-baked palms reminded him of Henry’s unsuccessful attempts at making tamales, the exhaust enacting the part of their gas stove. The daydreamer in him could have basked forever in the comfortable silence that had fallen between them, could have taken back Andrea’s hand and held it until the horizon smote the last glimmers of sun.
Instead he swung back into a more conversational position, propping his feet up on the armrest between the seats. “So. University?”
Andrea chuckled. “I was hoping you wouldn’t catch that.”
“I’m an editor. You can’t get anything past me.”
“Good to know. So... you run a magazine?”
“And don’t try to change the subject.” Hearing himself, Seb replayed that moment and thought better of his tone. “I mean, unless you want to. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. It’s none of my business, really. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.”
“I’m Canadian. It’s a biological imperative.”
Seb inwardly cheered the reemergence Andrea’s dazzling smile.
“I thought you were Japanese.”
“Fifty percent of my ancestors were. The other half are French. Well, French-Canadian, so from seven to ten generations removed from France. And I’m second generation on the Japanese side, so basically I’m one hundred percent Canadian.”
“With hockey in your heart and maple syrup coursing through your veins.”
“Yes on the maple syrup, no on the hockey. I’m not really into competitive sports.”
Andrea clicked his tongue. “Sacrilegio!” But his eyes didn’t harbor a hint of judgment. “What do you do, then, for sport?”
“Yoga, mainly. Swimming. Hiking. A bit of rock climbing, but that was more Henry’s thing.” Seb savored his next words, knowing how they would tantalize. “I’ve been known to kick a soccer ball around.”
Andrea’s reaction didn’t disappoint, his eyes sparking and his skin glowing as if lit from within. “Calcio? You play?”
“Just the occasional pickup game. My sister used to play intercity.”
“Ah, so it’s not just syrup you have in the blood.” He smacked Seb on the arm with such force it stung. “My friends and I, we play every Saturday morning. You’ll be here then, yes? You should come.”
“Oh, it’s been a long time since I’ve played.” Three years, give or take. Not that he’d been keeping score. “I wouldn’t want to hurt your team.”
Andrea waved this away with typical ease. “You won’t be the worst one on the field, by far.”
“How do you know? You’ve never even seen me play.”
The corner of his sinuous lips curled up. Andrea locked eyes with Seb as if in challenge, then slowly raked his gaze down the length of him. “You’ll do fine. And playing ball with a gang of sweaty Italian men is not exactly hard work.” Seb swallowed hard. “You can even bring your lady friends. I’m sure they wouldn’t miss it.”
“Lady...” Seb couldn’t pry his eyes off Andrea’s plush mouth, steer his imagination away from the vision of hot, shirtless soccer players until... “Oh, crap. What time is it?”
Andrea checked his watch, a plump bicep bulging out of his slender arm, ripe as an apple. The heaviness of Seb’s tongue was second only to the sudden tightness in his pants.
“18:15. Why? You missing your poker game?”
“Gin and tonics by the pool.”
“Ah.” Seb didn’t think he imagined the disappointment that shaded Andrea’s features. “Don’t worry. You’ll be back in time for supper.”
“If not for you, I don’t think I’d have gotten back at all.”
Andrea,, whose hand never left his shoulder, gave it a squeeze.
“Glad to be of service, Sebastiano.”