“Where’s home port?”
“San Diego,” said Paul, wagging his eyebrows at me.
“Oh man.”
“You can learn to surf. Maybe take some classes at UCSD?”
I appreciated the suggestion, which showed he was thinking about me. “I’m proud of you,” I said, and I meant it. If I took myself out of the equation for a minute, I could be happy for him. He had wanted this for a long time and had worked hard to get it.
“Thanks,” he said, and pointed to a field a little farther down the page. It readReport to Comdr., New Assignment, and underneath those words, Paul’s detailer had typed a date:1 JULY 1976.
“That’s when we’re leaving?” I asked, my voice barely audible.
“No, babe,” said Paul. “That’s when SOAC starts.”
“Oh, so we leave earlier?”
He nodded. “Probably a week or two before that.”
“It’s so soon,” I said, as I tried to quell the panic rising in my chest.
Paul gave me a funny look. “Did you think we were going to stay here forever?”
I didn’t say anything to that, just let loose an awkward laugh. Because in spite of all the talk, there was a small part of me that had been fooled into thinking I could stay in La Maddalena for as long as I liked.
131.
IN EARLY APRIL,Luca and I met for beers at Bar Fiume.
“We’re a sad pair,” I said as we sat down at a small outdoor table and ordered two Ichnusas. We’d both be leaving the island soon—me as a result of Paul’s orders, and Luca because the money for his research program did indeed look like it was running out.
“It’s all such a mess,” he agreed, then offered me a cigarette.
I declined, though it pained me to do so. I had taken Doc Callaway’s advice seriously and hadn’t smoked since he’d put me on the birth control pills.
“I mean, obviously, CNEN needs money,” said Luca. “It takes money to put gas in the boat. To buy equipment. To pay the salaries of the crew.”
“Just think about all the money you’re spending on postage, sending all those samples to Rome.”
“Exactly,” he said with a small laugh. “And I get why the Regional Council and certainly City Council can’t pay for it. It’s way too expensive. They don’t have the budgets for big research programs like this. And even if they did, I think they’d still argue that they shouldn’t have to pay for monitoring a bunch of nuclear submarines they never wanted in the first place.”
A waitress brought us our beers and a bowl of potato chips.
“What does Bruno think?” I asked him when she’d gone.
“He thinks the Ministry is bluffing. And that they’ll keep funding the project so long as it looks like the regional government is taking baby steps toward one day assuming responsibility for it.”
“That’d be great,” I said. “But if he’s wrong, and the funding goes away, what will you do?”
Luca ashed his cigarette and leaned back in his chair. “Hope something opens up in the central office, I guess.”
“What about Nina?”
He gave me a sly smile. “When did you become so interested in Nina’s career?”
I kicked him under the table. “I’ve always been interested in it.”
“She’s already in Venice,” he said.
