Page 66 of 32 Days in May

He pulls away, keeping a firm hold on my face between his hands, and looks down his nose at me.

“What was that for?”

His gaze meets mine, eyes shining. “Good. You’re still grinning.” He swipes a thumb over my lips. “I was getting really jealous of that damn whale—and this city.”

The fatigue of travel and jet lag are coming for me, ready to make me their bitch, crush me into a fine powder and blow me into the wind. But for now I’m delirious and slap-happy.

Out in the heat and haze of a Roman afternoon, Marco seems completely, totally in his element. This is a version of him far more confident than I’d seen in Evergreen and New York, a man I’d surrender to wholly. I’d let him manage my finances and my sleep schedule.

He knows the best ways to the best places; we zigzag around crowds and slip through streets so narrow they must be hidden passages. He tells me about different personal landmarks like: Piazza di Santa Maria in Trastevere is his favorite of all the piazzas, the communist bar around the corner with cheap beers is the best in the entire city, and the supplì shop two streets over has the best potato croquettes and roasted chicken. Does he like pizza alla pala? Yes, but only the kind with fresh mozzarella from the shop across from the park, on the other side of the piazza. He speaks Italian well enough to make me instantly jealous. When a woman speaks to me in an aggressive, rapid string of Romance-language perfection, I smile like a Midwesterner and gesture his way.

“So, what’s the deal with you and Rome?” I ask Marco over the margherita we’re splitting for lunch.

“We’re just having casual sex.”

“Oh, yeah?” I quirk a brow. “Just for the month of May or . . . ?”

“Very funny.” He rolls his eyes at me, reaching across the table to dust a bit of semolina flour from my chin. “I don’t know—I came here with the cast years ago and just . . . fell in love. It’s a city with everything, you know? Literally everything. It’s like the entire universe contained between seven hills.”

“What about Greece?” I ask, shimmying two slices of pizza apart. I push one in his direction.

“Greece is beautiful, but—it can be a lot, being so surrounded by family and tradition.”

I make a noise of deep, guttural recognition, so he keeps talking. “Rome feels like my place. My memories, my traditions. Every way I feel here is something I discovered.”

“No one’s telling you how to feel. No boardwalk clown music.”

Marco nods. “No boardwalk clown music.”

We jump on the tram and ride it to the end of the line. He takes me to a bookstore with four stories and endless shelves of glossy paperback editions. I see so many authors and volumes I lust for, I have no choice but to feel crushed with the knowledge that I’ll never possibly read them all. I stand at the table of Elena Ferrante novels with their Italian covers, as God intended, tears bubbling in my eyes.

Marco laughs and takes my picture.

In the center of it all, I feel an ancestral ache. Am I home here, too? Am I as home here as I am in Evergreen? Two places connected by an ancient pathway, carved out and worn smooth by millions of people. I see Liv in dark-haired women that zoom by on mopeds, brows set in determined concentration. I see my mother’s soft, lined smile in the faces of different shopkeepers, with their arthritic hands and reading glasses hanging around their necks.

We walk for miles until we reach Piazza Navona, and I stand awestruck at Neptune’s feet.

“Can we stay forever?” I ask Marco, arms outstretched. The sun sets in an ultraviolet explosion of indigo and fuchsia.

He makes the little eh, eh, eh noise and then snaps my picture from a crouching position. When he pulls his camera away, he’s watching me with a smile in his eyes. “It definitely suits you.”

The way he looks at me makes my skin goose-pimple, my stomach lurch into my chest.

It does, I think. I think I’m healed here. I think I’m all better now.

The thought comes in an instant—and then it’s gone.

Monday, May 15

Marco pulls me from a deep, dead, jet-lagged sleep with his mouth on my bare shoulder and a gentle hand coaxing my knees open underneath the crisp sheets. The sounds of traffic drift up toward us, rising off the Lungotevere, as we’d fallen asleep with the balcony doors open. I don’t do anything to resist or protest. Instead, I blossom to his touch, purring like a content cat.

When Marco pulls the sheet down over my hips, I don’t stop him. When his mouth skims my stomach and his hands slip underneath me, I don’t suggest we close the doors.

I slip into the bathroom and unzip the pouch that contains all my medicine—a series of loose, chalky pills floating around in a bag. I shake out what I need, my hand trembling slightly as the pills slide out one by one. They seem to grow every time I dole them out.

Fuck, I need water.

I shoot a furtive glance at the door, which I’ve left ajar. Marco’s on the balcony taking a phone call, his voice waxing and waning as he paces from one end to the other.