“You don’t think it’s like, maybe, a distraction?”
“No way,” she said, adamantly. “It’s like how submariners have to go to Nuclear Prototype School before they’re allowed to work on a real reactor.”
“Am I the prototype or the reactor?”
“It’s not a perfect analogy,” she said with a laugh. “All I’m saying is that having good sex is important, and if you figure out what you like, you’ll be in a better position to ask Paul to give it to you.”
She made it sound so simple. Even the phraseask Paul to give it to youimplied a level of maturity and understanding that I wasn’t sure either of us possessed.
I told Laura what had happened at Bar Fiume. It was a dumb idea, in hindsight, but I felt close to her that night, and I think I wanted her to tell me that Paul had overreacted, or that it was normal to get married and still be attracted to other people. I might have just wanted an excuse to say Teo’s name out loud. In any case, the version of the story I gave her was edited. I skipped a lot of the eye contact and also the part where he’d lit my cigarette.
“So, this guy Teo? Is he cute?” Laura asked when I was finished.
“Not really,” I said, but this was not exactly true. Teo was a different kind of cute than Paul. Sort of delicate, with high cheekbones, a thin nose, and a dramatic Cupid’s bow that most girls would have killed for. I couldn’t very well admit that I’d noticed any of these attributes, so I went with the more obvious stuff and nipped the whole conversation in the bud. “He’s skinny and not that tall. Kind of bookish.”
“Well, then, what’s Paul worried about?” said Laura. “He’s got the goods, and once he figures out how to get you off, he’s going to be in a league of his own.”
At that, we dissolved into peals of laughter.
When I’d recovered, I said, “What do you think the boys are talking about? Over at the club?”
Laura gestured at the space between us, like our words were still hanging in the air. “Definitely not this.”
65.
WHEN I WOKE UP THEnext morning, with a dry mouth and a splitting headache, the Chevelle was parked in front of the Excelsior as if it had always been there. Paul had already affixed its new Armed Forces license plates to the front and rear bumpers, and as I ran a finger along the car’s bright blue exterior, I let out a little yip of joy.
After breakfast we traced the perimeter of the island, from Moneta up through Villaggio Piras and around Spalmatore Cove to Porto Massimo. Paul drove, and with the windows rolled down and the radio on, I started to feel—for maybe the first time—like we really belonged in La Maddalena. Paul must have felt the same way, because when a love song came on the radio, he turned up the volume and tried to sing along to the chorus. “E quando nel suo viso, tutto il cielo si scoprì. Sì, sì.” Soon he had me cackling, which filled me up and also made me wonder if perhaps I shouldn’t have been talking so much shit to Laura.
We came up with a rule that whenever we saw something interesting, we were allowed to pull over. So on that first day, we stopped at a campground and a touring club and a beachfront bar that sold these icy push-up pops called Calypsos by the freezer-full. At the northernmost tip of the island was a tiny restaurant, with breathtaking views of Corsica, where we had lunch, and after that, we got back in the car only to immediately come upon a sign that readBASSA TRINITÀ.
“Is this where they’re building the officers’ housing?” I asked.
Paul pointed up a steep embankment a couple of hundred yards away, where there were at least a dozen houses under construction. “That’s them.”
“They’re going to have some view,” I said, and he agreed.
We parked the car and walked down a crooked path lined with crocuses to as pristine a beach as I’d ever come across. It was nothing but white sand dotted with big granite boulders. We sat on one and looked out at theturquoise water. “I didn’t know water could be this clear,” said Paul, and I told him I’d had the same thought.
The beach wasn’t crowded, but there were a number of sunbathers and even a few swimmers willing to brave the cold. One very pasty-looking guy in a Speedo was snorkeling, and when he waded ashore to present his wife with a large white seashell, his skin had taken on a bluish tinge.
“That’s sweet,” I said. “He’s brought her a gift.”
“I don’t know how he’s doing it,” said Paul. But then the man said something to his wife in some Nordic language, and it occurred to us that the Mediterranean in May was still probably warmer than the North Sea in July.
It was at Trinità that we saw our first topless sunbather. The woman was in her sixties or seventies, with skin like shoe leather and breasts that hung down to her waist. She was in our line of sight, so it was hard not to stare at her, and I sat there trying to decide if I’d ever be brave enough to take my top off in front of anyone other than Paul.
“Do you think her boobs used to look like mine?” I asked Paul, and after a quick glance, he said that he thought hers had always been bigger and more unwieldy and that, in all likelihood, she had breastfed a dozen children to boot.
“Well, that settles it,” I said. “I’m not breastfeeding.”
He lowered his aviators to look at me. “You’ll look foxy breastfeeding.”
“Gross,” I said, and shoved him.
“What?” he said, laughing. “You will!”
“I’ll be too busy sustaining life.”
