Chapter xix
xix
YOU KNOW WHEN YOU’RE IN SUCH A DEEP SLEEP that when you wake up, you actually don’t know where you are? That was what happened to me the next morning when I awoke to Eric Weiss calling. I had passed out in my hotel room, a dark and dreamless sleep, and when my phone rang, it was like swimming from the depths of the ocean to the fresh air on top.
“Hello?” I finally mumbled after a few rings, worried I wouldn’t catch it in time.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Fine,” I said, “fine. The time change got me. You’re up early.” I looked at the bedside clock. My eleven A.M., his five A.M.
“Always,” he said.
I’d only met Eric in person once before we started planning this retrospective. He was part of so many important times in my life, but he’d always been a voice on a telephone.
He was always kind, though. Incredibly kind.
“Anyway,” he said on the phone, calling me back to myself, “I have someone who can meet you this afternoon on the island of Lampedusa and show you around. A local guide, fluent in English, who helped some of my reporters out a few months ago. Her name is Rachele—I figured you might be most comfortable with a woman. And I just emailed you the name of one of the agents in our bookings department—she’ll help you with your flights and hotel.”
The sleep had shaken itself from my brain at this point. “Oh no,” I said. “Please, you don’t have to put yourself out that much for me. I can book my flights and hotel.”
“I do,” he said. “And before you protest again, it’s not just you. I’m doing it for Gabe. I want to see those photographs, too.”
“Okay,” I said, swallowing any further protestations, “got it. Thank you.”
“Of course,” he said. “Let me know what you find.”
“I will,” I told him.
The booking agent, Elaine, who worked the early shift, was kind and funny and put me on the next plane to Lampedusa. Then she booked me a hotel for two nights, and a flight back to Rome so I could make my flight from there home to New York.
“Easy as toast,” she said when she was done and sent my confirmations through.
“Toast?” I echoed. I’d never heard anyone say that before.
“I know it’s supposed to be pie,” she responded, “but have you ever tried to make a pie? Not actually so easy. Toast, on the other hand? Super easy.”
I laughed and remembered the time we burned our toast after getting caught up watching Jaws , which you couldn’t believe I’d never seen before. “I’ve messed that up, too,” I told her.
“So, easy as what?” she asked.
I thought about what was easy “Does it have to be cooking?” I asked.
She laughed. “I guess not.”
“Then easy as telling a story.”
“People are different, aren’t we?” Elaine said.
“Different,” I said, “but also the same. We all have some things that are easy and other things that are hard; they’re just not the same things.”
That’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot, Gabe, with everything going on in the world. The shared humanity in all of us. The way when you look at details, we can be so incredibly different, but when you take a step back, we’re all essentially the same. You just need that larger view.
“I like that,” Elaine said. “Nice to meet you, Lucy Carter Maxwell.”
“Nice to meet you, too,” I answered. “Thanks for your help.”
“My pleasure,” she said before hanging up the phone.
After I hung up, I got off the bed and stretched. I wondered if Elaine might have booked your travel, too. I should have asked.