Chapter 65
WHEN I WOKE UP THE next morning, with a dry mouth and a splitting headache, the Chevelle was parked in front of the Excelsior as if it had always been there.
Paul had already affixed its new Armed Forces license plates to the front and rear bumpers, and as I ran a finger along the car’s bright blue exterior, I let out a little yip of joy.
After breakfast we traced the perimeter of the island, from Moneta up through Villaggio Piras and around Spalmatore Cove to Porto Massimo.
Paul drove, and with the windows rolled down and the radio on, I started to feel—for maybe the first time—like we really belonged in La Maddalena.
Paul must have felt the same way, because when a love song came on the radio, he turned up the volume and tried to sing along to the chorus.
“E quando nel suo viso, tutto il cielo si scoprì. Sì, sì.” Soon he had me cackling, which filled me up and also made me wonder if perhaps I shouldn’t have been talking so much shit to Laura.
We came up with a rule that whenever we saw something interesting, we were allowed to pull over.
So on that first day, we stopped at a campground and a touring club and a beachfront bar that sold these icy push-up pops called Calypsos by the freezer-full.
At the northernmost tip of the island was a tiny restaurant, with breathtaking views of Corsica, where we had lunch, and after that, we got back in the car only to immediately come upon a sign that read BASSA TRINITà.
“Is this where they’re building the officers’ housing?” I asked.
Paul pointed up a steep embankment a couple of hundred yards away, where there were at least a dozen houses under construction. “That’s them.”
“They’re going to have some view,” I said, and he agreed.
We parked the car and walked down a crooked path lined with crocuses to as pristine a beach as I’d ever come across.
It was nothing but white sand dotted with big granite boulders.
We sat on one and looked out at the turquoise water.
“I didn’t know water could be this clear,” said Paul, and I told him I’d had the same thought.
The beach wasn’t crowded, but there were a number of sunbathers and even a few swimmers willing to brave the cold. One very pasty-looking guy in a Speedo was snorkeling, and when he waded ashore to present his wife with a large white seashell, his skin had taken on a bluish tinge.
“That’s sweet,” I said. “He’s brought her a gift.”
“I don’t know how he’s doing it,” said Paul. But then the man said something to his wife in some Nordic language, and it occurred to us that the Mediterranean in May was still probably warmer than the North Sea in July.
It was at Trinità that we saw our first topless sunbather.
The woman was in her sixties or seventies, with skin like shoe leather and breasts that hung down to her waist. She was in our line of sight, so it was hard not to stare at her, and I sat there trying to decide if I’d ever be brave enough to take my top off in front of anyone other than Paul.
“Do you think her boobs used to look like mine?” I asked Paul, and after a quick glance, he said that he thought hers had always been bigger and more unwieldy and that, in all likelihood, she had breastfed a dozen children to boot.
“Well, that settles it,” I said. “I’m not breastfeeding.”
He lowered his aviators to look at me. “You’ll look foxy breastfeeding.”
“Gross,” I said, and shoved him.
“What?” he said, laughing. “You will!”
“I’ll be too busy sustaining life.”
“Can’t you do both?” he teased.
“Laura told me that she and Bobby are trying to have another baby,” I said without thinking. I had already told him about the miscarriage, and this felt like a natural continuation of that conversation, but I had forgotten that Laura had sworn me to secrecy. “You can’t tell Bobby you know.”
“You think I’m going to go up to Bobby and say, Hey, I heard you’re trying to put a bun in Laura’s oven?”
“Well, in case you were thinking about it,” I said, “don’t.”
“Could be us,” said Paul.
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “But they’ve been married a couple of years, and I think with the miscarriage, they’re really ready to get going again.”
“And you’re not?”
“Not what?”
Paul toed the sand, refusing to look at me. “Ready.”
I wanted to tell him about the day I’d learned Lenny was dead.
How my dad had met me at the door and sat me down on the sofa, repeated all the same things the casualty notification officers had told him when they’d knocked on the door.
I could barely hear him, let alone take in what he was saying, because my mother was down the hall in their bedroom, wailing.
It was a high-pitched peal, the kind of sound I didn’t even know humans could make.
Like she’d had a limb sawed off without the benefit of anesthesia.
I couldn’t say any of that to Paul, I don’t know why.
So I told him what the women at the Intercultural Relations Seminar had said.
How an American ob-gyn flew in only once a month and that most women wound up spending at least a couple of weeks in Naples before they delivered.
“If I end up on bed rest or something, I could be there for months.”
He pulled me toward him. “Okay, so let’s wait.”
“You don’t mind?” I asked.
“Of course not.”
I leaned into him, heavy with relief, and Paul kissed the crown of my head, which was warm from the sun.
“Honestly,” he said, “it’s in my own best interest to wait,” and when I asked him why, he laughed a little. “I’m going to be terrible at sharing you.”
“Oh, give me a break,” I said, but secretly, I liked being the center of someone’s world.