“It’s like being in a movie,” I say. “LikeOnly YouorUnder the Tuscan Sun.”
“I don’t watch too many movies,” he says. “But it is very cinematic, I agree.”
“Who have you brought here?” I ask him.
Adam smiles at me. His dimples on full display. “Maybe someone brought me.”
I shake my head. “No way.”
“Why?”
“You strike me as someone who likes to be in the driver’s seat.”
“Well,” he says. “I suppose that’s true. But you can’t know something without being introduced to it. Everyone has an entry point. An ex I dated brought me to Positano for the first time, actually. Granted, it was many years ago. We were barely more than kids. We stayed at a hotel called La Fenice. It was so high up and out of town we basically had to hike up to the path every day. We didn’t have much money, but the view was stellar.”
I look at him, a smile slowly spreading across his face.
“It was your favorite trip, wasn’t it?”
Adam turns back to me. His gaze lingers on me. “It used to be.”
Dinner is out on the terrace, bathed in the golden Italian light. There is a wood-fired pizza oven, decorated with beautiful blue and white and red enamel plates, and the meal is served on the same flatware.
We get pizzas—truffle with figs and roasted tomatoes—and the sweetest arugula, pear, and Parmesan salad and crisp calamari, fried to perfection. There is also a bottle of red wine that is so delicious I drink it like water.
“What happened to the girl?” I ask Adam. Our plates have cleared, and we are enjoying a second bottle of wine. The sun is setting on the sea—dimming the whole evening into blue hues. The ocean darkens from turquoise to indigo. All of a sudden, the terrace is lit by candlelight.
“Oh,” Adam says. “It was a long time ago. We were young.”
“How young?” I realize I don’t know how old Adam is. Older. Thirty-five? Thirty-eight?
“Young enough,” he says. He laughs. “We were traveling all over, and Positano was her nonnegotiable travel destination, so we came.”
“And you fell in love.”
“With the town, yes. I was already in love with her. She ended up breaking my heart six months later.”
“What happened?”
“A drummer named Dave.”
I nod. “I get it,” I say, although I don’t. I never let myself fall in and out of love. I never had other experiences.
I think about last night, Adam across from me.
“How about you?” Adam asks.
“Me?”
“Have you ever had your heart broken?”
I think about Eric, at college, his goofy charm, weekends driving the coast to Santa Cruz, Costco runs, pizza night at my parents’.
“No,” I say.
Adam smiles. “You know what they say.”
“What?”
