Part 23 (1/2)

He grinned.

”Are you serious?” I whispered. ”You still want to fool around with me with all this going on?”

He nodded.

I laughed, then stood up. ”Let's go.”

We went in search of an innkeeper to ask for our own room, but everything was shut down for the night, and no one was around. I led him into the breakfast room, closed the door behind us and turned off the lamp. It was dark now, only the alley lights barely seeping through the windows. The rain began to pound harder against them, blocking out all other sounds.

Theo picked me up and wrapped my legs around his waist.

”This is getting to be a favorite position of ours,” I said.

”Mmm-hmm.” His mouth was on my neck, just below my ear.

He walked, my legs still around him, until he reached the table at the far side of the room, where everything was covered in darkness. He sat me down on the table and drew me closer. I thought I knew what he would do. I thought he would do exactly what we'd been doing in my condo stairwell the few nights before I left town. But instead, he put his arms around me and embraced me gently. For minutes. I don't know how many exactly, but they were long, soothing minutes.

And then he started kissing me. He kissed me as though there was nothing else he wanted to do, not at that moment, not ever. He seemed to be drawing something out of me, something from a very small pit deep inside me that the eye couldn't see, a place that held calm and clarity. With every kiss, I felt myself loosening, felt that calm rising to the surface.

We never did have s.e.x that night. We kissed on the table for an hour.

Finally, he said, ”Let's go to bed.”

That night, in a twin bed, tucked in Theo's arms, I slept better than I had since all the craziness began.

”She doesn't scare easily,” said the voice on the phone from Napoli, telling Dez exactly what he didn't want to hear.

But then again, that's what he prized about Neapolitans, about his ”coworkers” in the System. They told it the way it was, not how you wanted it to look.

”Well, then handle it,” he said. ”Try harder.”

34.

T he ferry port was a chaotic place, full of garbage and concrete that smelled of urine. Behind the port, the city slept while the sun crept up, its s.h.i.+mmering backdrop outlining Naples, making it appear, for the moment, a simple, straightforward city. On the other side of the harbor, Mount Vesuvius loomed in the distance, looking more like a huge, gra.s.sy mound than an active volcano.

Few people at the port seemed to speak English, or maybe it was simply too early for them to be accommodating. As a result, the four of us scuttled from ticket counter to ticket counter, asking for a ferry to Ischia, only to have surly clerks shout, No, no, no! followed by a lot of pointing and unintelligible strings of words.

Theo, it turned out, was unflappable in these situations. ”Let's try there,” he'd say, pointing at yet another counter, not seeming tired or annoyed, just matter-of-fact.

Bernard, an unexpected companion on this part of the trip, didn't seem to be the type to get ruffled, either. He made it his job to pacify Maggie, who grew crankier by the minute, muttering, Jesus Christ and Oh, that's helpful.

When Bernard's alarm had buzzed earlier that morning, he had sat up, his black hair standing at odd angles on his head, making him look even taller than he was. ”We've got to get to the ferry, right?”

We had all grumbled and hauled ourselves up into seated positions. I looked at the clock-5:30 a.m. The first ferry to Ischia was to leave in fifty-five minutes, and I wanted to be on it. I wanted to be away from Naples and those guys, whoever they were.

”You're coming with us?” Maggie asked Bernard. She put a hand on his shoulder and rubbed a little, a gesture that made it look as if they'd been together for years. ”Don't you have to teach?”

”Not yet. Not for two more days. So, if you'll have me...” He and Maggie looked deeply into each other's eyes, then Bernard seemed embarra.s.sed. He looked around the room. ”I mean, if you'll all have me, I'd like to go to Ischia.”

”h.e.l.l, yeah,” Theo said. I nodded sleepily. It seemed that all that Maggie could do was smile.

Then Maggie gasped. She stood and clapped. ”It's Izzy's birthday! Happy birthday!”

”d.a.m.n,” Theo said. ”I forgot.”

”So did I,” I said.

”Happy birthday,” Theo said. And then right in front of Maggie and Bernard he gave me a birthday kiss. A really, really, really good one.

”Okay, enough,” Maggie said, pulling me to my feet and into a hug. ”Wait, I have your present.” She went to her bag on the floor and rooted around inside it. She pulled out a small package wrapped in green paper and handed it to me.

”Mags, you're not supposed to get me anything. You've been paying for everything on this trip already.”

”It's nothing big, trust me.”

I pulled off the paper. Inside was a small wooden box, and inside that, a small bag of seeds.

”They're wildflower seeds.”

I looked at her with a question on my face. I've never been a gardener.

”I was thinking,” Maggie said, ”that you're starting your life over right now, you know? So in a way, you're repotting yourself. And I know you're going to flourish. But I just thought that you should put some other flowers in with you. Remind you to look around and see how amazing life is and how different it can be. So when we get back home, I have another present for you. It's a flower box for your roof deck, and we're going to plant these wildflowers, and whenever you see them, you're going to remember that you're growing, too.”

”Mags, you're a sweetheart!” I stood and hugged her.

Bernard went and found an innkeeper to get a pastry with a candle in it, and I blew it out, surrounded by Bernard and Theo and Maggie and thinking that, so far, it wasn't a bad birthday at all.

At the dock now, we finally managed to score tickets and boarded the ferry to Ischia. The outside deck was painted white, no seats in sight. Once on the s.h.i.+p, all the pa.s.sengers trudged inside to a big room carpeted in blue and rows of what looked like airplane seats. At the front of the room, a large TV blared an annoying Italian cartoon. No one seemed to notice. Most of the pa.s.sengers grabbed seats, threw their bags down and promptly went to sleep.

The ferry pulled out of the harbor slowly, but when it hit open water, the captain must have pulled back on the throttle because the boat picked up speed. Meanwhile, I paced around the ferry ten times, staggering a little when we hit a wave, pulling Theo along with me until he finally declared that the guys who'd run after us last night were definitely not pa.s.sengers, at least not ones we could see.

Once we got that out of the way, the ferry was rather calming. Theo and I tucked ourselves onto blue upholstered chairs and watched as we sliced through the cobalt sea. Outside our window, Maggie and Bernard stood at the railing, talking fast, not even noticing their surroundings. Bernard had to bend down and lean on the railing in order to hear Maggie.

As I watched them, I smiled at first. Maggie was clearly head over heels, and although it was hysterical to see her with a big bear of a guy like Bernard, it was somehow fitting, too.

Theo took my hand in his and followed my gaze out the window. ”So she just met him yesterday?”

”Yeah, he came up right as we got on the train and helped Maggie with her bag. It was so cute because they were wearing the same...” I let my words die away as my mind got stuck on a phrase I'd just uttered-he came up right as we got on the train.

I thought back to yesterday. We'd gotten on the train and Bernard was there immediately. Immediately. Where had he come from? And the train car wasn't full, so what were the odds that his seat was right across from ours?

”What are you thinking about?” Theo said to me.

I stared out the window at Maggie and Bernard. Suddenly, he seemed not so much a gentle giant, but possibly a sinister one.