There is an ease, a casualness to her that I’ve never seen. Or if I have, I don’t remember it.Come back when you come back?Who is this woman?
Remo gets us a table close to the sea, and we sit. A basket of bread and some olive oil is already waiting for us. The oil comes in a little blue-and-red ceramic dish outlined with white fish. Black flies land periodically on the table, but the wind keeps them away, for the most part. The ocean crashes on the rocksnext to us, and two couples lounge in beach chairs by the edge. Otherwise, it’s empty.
“You are lucky to be here now,” Remo says. “Another three weeks, and Positano is infested.”
“Tourists,” Carol clarifies. “Not bugs.”
“Same, same,” Remo says, smiling.
They sit on one end of the table, and me the other. I study my mother. Again and again and again. The living, breathing beauty of her now. So current, so present, practically overflowing, that I feel if I squeezed her, I’d be able to capture the runoff.
“Remo, do you live in Positano?” I ask.
I take a moment to really look at him. He’s handsome, there’s no doubt about that. He looks a little like a Roman god. Tanned torso, locks of curly brown hair, and crystal-blue eyes.
“I live in Naples, but in the summer I come to Positano because in the summer, that is where the money is.”
“Remo works at Buca di Bacco,” she says.
“The hotel?” I remember reading about it during our research for the trip.
“Hotel e ristorante,” Remo says. “I am a cameriere, ah, waiter.” Remo smiles.
“It’s a very respected profession in Italy,” she says. “It’s a shame America doesn’t really have the same tradition.”
My parents only go to two restaurants regularly, and they’re both in Beverly Hills: Craig’s and Porta Via. They get the same four entrées. My father is a creature of habit. Rarely and occasionally my mother will get him to try something outside his comfort zone—Eveleigh in West Hollywood, Perch downtown.
The waiter appears, and Remo shakes his hand warmly. “Buongiorno, signore.”
“Buongiorno,” Carol says. She takes a long swig of water and wrings out her hair onto the sandy floor.
Remo begins ordering swiftly in Italian. I look to Carol.
“Everything will be delicious,” she says. “Don’t worry. Remo brought me here last week, and it is best to just go with it.”
I’ve never heard my mother use the phrasejust go with it, not once.
“Are you guys…” I start, but Carol answers before I can finish.
“Friends, yes?” she says. “He’s taken me under his wing and shown me Positano from a local’s perspective.” She leans across the table conspiratorially. “But he is very handsome.”
I look to Remo. He is still immersed in conversation. “Um, yes.”
“So what brings you to Positano, Katy?” my mother asks. “Besides the obvious.”
“And what’s that?”
“Italy,” she says, winking at me.
A bottle of rosé and glasses show up, and Remo pours for us, turning back to the table, to the conversation.
“It’s a beautiful place, no?” Remo says.
I nod. I’m not sure what to say.My mother died and I don’t know what to do with my life anymore, so I left my husband and came here to Italy.
Oh yeah and by the way, you’re her.
“I needed a break,” I say, truthfully. My mother smiles; Remo refills his water glass.
