It would have ended there if she hadn't continued to yell at me, but I no longer knew what she was saying. Her words had become all short spits and crazy, whirling gestures. Thank God, the child was okay!
The commotion that followed was confusing and ugly; it lasted about twenty minutes. Besides the woman and me, it involved two policemen, the waiter and a number of «eyewitnesses.»
The police wanted to know if that _was_ my child – had the woman stolen anything from me, did I want to press charges? They didn't ask her one thing, although she continued to yell until one of them threatened to take her to jail unless she shut up.
When it was over, they told her to get out of there. Touching their hats to me, they gave me one last suspicious look and then followed her out to make sure she left. The poor waiter, who was completely baffled by then, kindly asked if I wanted another _spremuta_. It was obvious though that he wanted me out of there too and the whole thing forgotten. I said no and gave him ten thousand lira for his trouble.
I immediately went to a post office and – without thinking – called my parents in New York to see if Mae was okay. They thought it was very cute that I was so concerned, but it _was_ the middle of the night there and they hoped the ringing hadn't wakened her. My mother reminded me to bring home a big piece of Parmesan cheese and told me not to waste my time in Italy worrying. I felt very foolish, but greatly reassured.
When I met up with Danny again an hour later, he told me he had called a bunch of our friends and arranged for all of us to have dinner together later. We spent the rest of the day wandering around and that was nice, but the scene earlier had slapped me hard in the face and left it stinging and bright red.
Luckily, dinner was a rowdy three hours that did a great deal toward making things better. Familiar stories, heavenly food and funny, entertaining people reminded me once again of how first-rate living in Italy had been for us.
Everyone wanted to see pictures of Mae and I gladly obliged. Two of them decided after seeing the snaps that she must marry their sons in a few years and have Italian _bambini_. I didn't dare ask how she was to manage two husbands at the same time!
We ate and talked and it seemed as if someone was always gesturing wildly or else refilling everyone's glass with red wine. Danny sat directly across from me, wedged between two old basketball teammates; he looked very happy. Once in a while he would look over to make sure I was getting along all right. Good tears came to my eyes more than once that evening, and not only when they brought out a birthday cake. There were no candles, but Lorenzo remedied that by taking one from the table and jamming it into the middle of the cake, much to the waiter's dismay.
«Make a weesh, Cullen!»
«Yes, wish that we win some more games next year!»
«Hey, _fungione_, it's her birthday today, not yours!»
I closed my eyes and wished the fifth Bone of the Moon for Pepsi. I certainly had everything I wanted.
At the hotel afterward, we decided to take a bath together. Halfway through, we made slow, funny love right there in the tub. We hadn't done that in a long time and I thought it was perfect and hilarious. Danny asked what was so funny and the only thing I could answer was, «Our knees, our knees!» which didn't clarify much.
The nice thing about sex is that you can use it for so many different things: to get hot, to cement a bond or – in the case of that moment for us – to be little kids again together, having a great sexy time.
When we'd untangled ourselves from the love tub, Danny dried off fast and disappeared into the bedroom in a suspicious hurry.
«What are you doing?»
«You'll see.»
I looked at my reflection in the mirror and frowned. «Danny. . . .»
«Be quiet and just come in here when you're ready.»
I wrapped a towel around me and marched in. . . .
When I came to Europe and joined Danny in Greece, one day I found on a beach the most beautiful piece of bottle glass I'd ever seen. Bottle glass? It's glass that has been in the ocean so long that, broken or not at one time, all of its corners have since become rounded and smooth. What's even better if you've come across a special piece, is that it has the most gentle, washed-out, unearthly color imaginable. I have seen it the strange gray-blue of cigarette smoke as it disappears in the air, or the fragile pink of a baby's tongue. Of course it all depends on what color the glass was originally and how long it has been washing around under water. Many people collect it with a strange passion and I can understand that, because good bottle glass is like nothing you've ever seen before. Enchantingly, I found my piece on one of the first days in Europe and naturally I took that as a great omen. I treasured it for many reasons, but particularly because it meant so many things all at once. Every time I looked at it on my dresser – it was about the size of a fifty-cent piece – it was 1. Danny James; 2. the first days in Greece; 3. Europe; 4. Love; 5. My first great courage . . . all of it there in a small mysterious piece of glass.
This night in Milan it was sitting on top of one of the pillows. Danny had taken it to a jeweler and had a small hole drilled at the top, so that he could thread it on the thin gold chain that he'd bought. I could wear the whole beautiful thing as a necklace. I'd often mentioned wanting to do just that, if and when we ever came into a little extra loot.
It was a complete Danny James gift – loving, thoughtful, intimate. I went over and gave him a bear hug.
«You're such a big . . . treasure. You know that, Danny? Thank you very much.»
«You're welcome. I think you're losing your towel there.»
I pulled him down on to the bed and at half-speed, as sexily as I could, put his necklace on, watching him closely the whole time. My body felt charged with electricity, which made my skin hot and tight and tingly. We were both ready again, but it had to be slow now. Not funny or friendly slow as it had been before in the bathtub. Now it would be thick-slow; blood pounding in your head, slow. Don't touch yet – not yet. Wait and look, look until you can't stand it anymore, then wait more.
He understood. We had done it this way before, but because it was Milan and my birthday, and as much magic in the air as we'd ever have between us, we waited even longer. Danny's only move was to put one hot finger under the golden necklace and jiggle it lightly. I felt it all across my breasts. We were still looking straight into each other's eyes.
«Happy birthday, my Cullen.»
Later, dripping and exhausted, I fell right to sleep. I dreamed we visited the grave of our daughter.
I figured we missed the call by about twenty minutes. We were already on our way to the Milan airport when Danny's sister called the hotel from North Carolina to say his mother had collapsed at work and was in the hospital on the intensive care ward. The prognosis was not good; she needed immediate heart-bypass surgery, or else.
My parents gave us the news when we returned to New York and went over to their apartment to pick up Mae. Danny called North Carolina from their apartment and got all of the ruthless details. We decided it would save time and worry if he just went straight back to the airport and flew down to Winston-Salem on the next flight, alone. If he had to stay there for a while, then Mae and I could always join him later. For now, his getting there fast was all that mattered.
Trouble always knows how to take you by nasty surprise. One minute you're sitting at home by the fire, then – _blink_ – you're suddenly in a completely foreign city where you don't speak the language, all the banks are closed, you've got no map and night's already come.