I take my sunglasses off and give him a pointed stare. “It’s Italy.”
“Hey, listen, I’m in. You’re the one who wanted me to play tour guide. I was trying to get as much mileage in as possible.”
“And you did a great job. Now I’d like some wine.”
He grins at me. “As you wish. I know a great spot.”
I follow him up the street onto Via Cristoforo Colombo. After a minute or two, we stop in front of a restaurant on the left-hand side. It’s two stories, with a terrace on the second level overlooking the street and ocean.
Adam shakes hands with the maître d’. He points across the street to where there are two tables, right on the street, that look like they’re literally hanging over the ocean. “Possible?” he asks.
The man nods. “Naturalmente.”
We cross, and Adam pulls out my chair for me.
“We’re in the middle of the street,” I say to Adam.
“Pretty great, right?”
I look behind him, to where Positano’s colored town rises out of the ocean.
“This must be spectacular at night.”
Adam nods. “It is.” He glances at me. There’s a suggestion there, but I leave it dangling. A waiter appears with bread, water, and a carafe of white wine, snipping the moment. Adam pours for us.
“Very good,” I say. I take a big gulp. “What is this?”
“Their house white,” he says. “I order it every time I come here.” He wipes some sweat from his forehead and lifts his glassto me. “To new friends,” he says. He holds my gaze for just a beat longer.
I meet his glass with a clink.
“Do you ever wonder how people used to find this place? Before there were travel brochures or even word of mouth.”
“I think there was always word of mouth.”
“You know what I mean.” I put my elbows on the table and lean forward. “So, okay, that ship. What must it have felt like to step onto this shore for the first time? I can’t imagine that people built this place. It feels like it’s always been, I don’t know, undiscoverable. Like it’s always just existed exactly as it is today.”
Adam sits back, thoughtful. He takes a sip of wine.
“Sometimes, I guess,” he says. “I feel that about Italy in general. All this living history. Different eras and experiences, joy and suffering stacked up on top of each other like sheets of paper.”
“Sheets of paper. That’s the perfect way to describe it.”
I think of one of the final scenes inThe Thomas Crown Affair, the remake with Rene Russo and Pierce Brosnan. Thomas Crown has stolen a painting from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, replacing it with a forgery. As the plot crescendos, the museum infiltrated and the sprinklers on, the forgery begins to disintegrate, revealing that the original painting has been there all along, just underneath it. The same canvas.
One thing on top of another on top of another.
“How often are you at home?” I ask Adam. “I have a vision of you in an apartment with gray walls and gray furniture. Maybe a red headboard.”
He raises an eyebrow at me. “That’s specific.”
“Masculine and minimalist,” I say.
Adam laughs. “I’m not a pack rat, you’ve got that right.But I like Navajo pottery. Not sure where that fits into the equation.”
“Really?”
“Really,” he says. “I bought my first piece on a trip with my mom to Santa Fe, and I’ve been collecting ever since.”
