Between five and seven each night, Romans paraded around their neighborhoods for everyone to see. Couples, families, friends, everyone would stroll in twos and threes. They were dressed in their finest, to see and be seen as was the custom. The streets were alive after the heat of the day had passed, filled with friendly faces and chatter. People greeted each other as though they hadn’t seen each other in years, catching up on the day’s activities, making impromptu dinner plans, and deciding what they might do that weekend.
While people typically strolled in their own neighborhoods, Daisy used our nightly passeggiata as a way to show me more of this enchanting city. With Daisy by my side, we used the Metro to zig and zag across the city, turning it from a labyrinth of muddled streets into a walkable town.
Excuse me, a struttable town. Because on our evening strolls through the Trastevere, the Tridente, the Prati, I realized that Italians are strutters. They’re proud of their city, of their neighborhoods, as they should be. Not to mention any woman who can navigate those cobblestones in four-inch Bionda Castanas has earned the lifelong right to strut.
What I loved most about these nightly walks were the stuzzichini, or snacks, that were laid out in the tiny bars and restaurants, free for the taking as long as you purchased a drink or two. We’d stroll for a bit, then pop into a bar and devour olives, pickles, little bites of fresh cheese and crispy fried vegetables, whatever was in season. We’d munch on cured salami, tiny pizzas, little rounds of pâté, even pastries and sweets. We typically had only one drink apiece before resuming our stroll; then the monumental task of deciding where to have dinner. There was no shortage of incredible restaurants and we enjoyed beautiful food every night.
And it was during these passeggiatas that I got to know Daisy again, as a grown-up. Though we’d been friends forever, there were things I’d missed as we’d pursued our opposite-direction lifestyles, and I was really enjoying spending time with my friend again.
The following Wednesday afternoon, I was napping on the couch. A habit I’d fallen into after traipsing across the city all day, it was my new favorite pastime. The phone woke me and I scrambled to answer it. In my sleep haze I never stopped to think whether I should be answering someone else’s phone.
It was a good thing I answered it.
“Hello?” I said, rolling over to check the clock. Whoops, later than I’d thought.
“There is this man. He makes incredible pizza,” a voice said. I knew that voice.
I sat straight up, bonking my head on the overhead lamp. “Okay? Ow!” I rubbed my head. Unbelievable.
“I am hungry.”
“I’m sorry?” I asked, chuckling to myself. My body responded to Marcello’s voice, little shockwaves at war with my determination to play this cool. I imagined him in his office, coffee in hand, and a smile on his face. “Wait, are you asking me out for pizza?”
“It is very good pizza,” he replied, his tone giving away nothing.
“You know, it’s awfully late in the day. You’re assuming I don’t already have plans,” I teased. Wait, was I flirting? And yet . . .
Daisy was out tonight and I was only going to flip a coin again and see where it would lead me.
The new sense of freedom was intoxicating. Not having to constantly be running from one country club meeting to the next was a treat. It was nice not to have to pretend that I enjoyed spending my time with Junior Leaguers. All those women with the same pearls and the same cardigans, and the same knowing and sympathetic glances . . . It made me wonder how many of them knew what my husband was up to. Or if any of them were involved with him.
But as a ray of late-afternoon sunshine broke through the window and my thoughts of home, I realized that none of those women had what I had. What I might have.
An evening with Marcello. And all that might entail.
Decision made, I grinned. “I can be ready in twenty.”
“I’m outside.”
“Wait, what?” I cried, jumping off the couch and running to the front door. Peering out the side window, there he was on the stoop with the phone up to his ear.
“I see you.” He waved.
“Gimme ten minutes,” I huffed, hanging up and quickly stepping away from the window. I ran to the bedroom, ripped off my shirt, and tore through the dresser looking for a top that didn’t need to be ironed.
I skidded through the hallway and stopped at the antique oval mirror. “Fuck,” I groaned, and tried to smooth down my hair. I had showered and then napped, not taking the time to dry my hair.
For anyone with naturally curly hair, that’s a disastrous combination. It was everywhere, wild and untamed. And of course Daisy’s apartment had eaten every hair tie I’d brought. I looked around wildly for a hat. A fedora or hell, I’d even wear a knit cap in this humidity. There was a silk scarf hanging from the coat rack and I grabbed it just as he knocked at the door.
“Just a minute!” I called out, whipping the scarf around my head and trying to stuff my hair behind it.
“Can I at least come in?” he called.
“No!” I shouted, and frowned in the mirror. I’d tied it back as best I could, hiding the bulk of it underneath the scarf, sixties style. I hated not feeling pulled together. Daniel never saw me with a hair out of place. A button was never missed, a shoe was never unpolished, and lordy knows the occasional pimple never left the house uncovered.
“Hi,” I said, swinging the door open when I finished tying the scarf’s bow.
Once again, in the country where every male was always presentable and pretty damn good looking, he was stunning. The sun from the courtyard lit him up from behind, making him appear angelic and devilish at the same time—beautiful.