I pull my notebook off the nightstand and pick up the list of things I wanted to do with Roman on Capri. There it is, in plain English, a list of fabulous, romantic side trips and excursions, places to eat, foods to try, the hours the pool is open! I even wrote that schedule down.
Suddenly, I am overcome with sadness that I have to do these things alone. I begin to cry, the disappointment almost too much to bear. This place is so romantic and I’m miserable. Rejection is the worst, whether you’re fourteen or forty. It stings, it’s humiliating, and it’s irreversible. I take the box of tissues and go out on the balcony. The sun blazes hot orange in the deep blue sky. Boats, with their sails bleached white, bob in the harbor below. I watch them for a long time.
I think about calling Gram, but I don’t want her to waste this week worried about me, or worse, trying to include me in her plans with Dominic.
I see a family, two children and a mother and a father, on their way to the pool. The children skip along the winding path through the garden as their parents follow closely behind. I watch as they reach the pool. The children pull off their cover-ups and jump in, while the mother chooses chairs and arranges the towels. The husband puts his arms around his wife, surprising her from behind. She laughs and turns to him. They kiss. How effortless happiness looks from here. People, everyone else that is, find happiness by falling in love and making their own families. It will never happen for me. I know it.
I take a shower and dress. I load a tote bag with my phone, wallet, and sketchbook. I head out the door. I can’t stay in this room another minute; it’s just a reminder of who is not here. The thought of this makes me burst into tears, so I stuff the box of tissues into my tote bag.
The lobby is quiet since it’s early yet. I go to the front desk. I open my purse and pull out my wallet.
“Checking out?” the young man asks.
“No, no. I’ll be here for the week, as scheduled. I’d like to take Mr. Falconi’s name off my room. I want to put the room on my credit card instead, please.”
“Si, si,” he says. He swipes my room key and finds my information. He takes my credit card and makes the change on the bill.
“Thank you. Oh, and I’d also like to take a tour boat around the island.”
“Absolutely.” He checks the schedule. “There is one leaving in twenty minutes, from the pier.”
“Would you call me a taxi?”
“Of course,” he says.
The tour boat is not really a boat at all, but a skiff, with several rows of wooden benches painted bright yellow, upon which tourists, including me, sit four across. There are about eighteen of us, mostly Japanese, a few Greeks, a couple of other Americans, an Ecuadorian, and me.
The captain is an old Neapolitan sea dog with a white beard, a straw hat, and a beat-up megaphone that looks like it’s taken its share of dips in the Tyrrhenian Sea. As the boat pulls away from the pier, the thrust of the motor plows us to the surface of the water.
Captain Pio explains that he will show us the natural wonders of Capri as the woman next to me shoves her elbow in my face getting a picture of Pio with her cell phone camera. Soon, all the tourists are snapping Pio with their phones. He pauses and smiles for them. I think of Gianluca, who said that he hated all this technology. In this moment, I do, too.
I miss big, bulky old-fashioned cameras that you wear around your neck on a strap. Most of all I miss the fact that you used to have to save the film for the best moments because it was too expensive to squander. Now, we take pictures of everything, including pictures of people taking pictures. Maybe Gianluca is right, technology doesn’t lead to better living and art, it’s madness.
I love watching the boats on the Hudson River, but it is a very different thing to be on one pitching and bouncing over the waves. I am surprised at how rocky the ride actually is because from the docks, the boats appear to move smoothly over the water. Isn’t this the way it is in love? It looks so easy and effortless from the distance-but when you’re in it, it’s a different experience. You feel every bump and wonder which wave will overtake you, will you survive or drown on the treacherous water, will you make it or capsize?
Our skiff is unwieldy as we are tossed in the surf like an old plank. Big waves come out of nowhere, tossing us a foot in the air, to land us with a thud on the water. The bouncing begins anew when a new wave rolls under us. My teeth begin to hurt from the pounding of the surf against the sides of the boat. I feel the weight of every human body on this boat. We sit so closely together that when a rogue wave hits the side, it’s like the group is body-slammed with a lead pipe.
Pio guides the boat into a calm inlet (thank God) and points to a natural rock formation that resembles a statue of the Blessed Mother as she appeared in the grotto at Lourdes. Pio says the Blessed Mother is a miracle of wind, rain, volcanic rock, and faith. At that point, even I pull out my phone and take a picture.
Pio backs us out of the inlet, showing us the indigenous coral growing beneath the water’s edge along the sea wall. As the waves lap against the rocks, we catch glimpses of the glassy red tentacles of coral. I begin to cry when I remember the branch of coral that Roman gave me when he promised me this trip. The Asian woman next to me says, “You okay? Seasick?”
I shake my head no, I’m not seasick, I want to scream! I’m heartsick! Instead, I smile and nod and look away at the ocean. It’s not her fault that Roman Falconi didn’t show up! The stranger is just being polite, that, and she doesn’t want me throwing up on her faux Gucci purse.
As Pio guides the boat back onto the sea, and we are tossed to and fro anew, I see lots of other boats like ours stuffed with shoulder-to-shoulder tourists making the rounds. When we pull out of one inlet, another boat pulls in to take our place.
“When are we going to see the Blue Grotto?” the American husband of the American wife asks.
“Soon, soon,” Pio replies with a weary smile that says he answers this question a thousand times a day.
We hear the sound of accordion music drift across the water. All heads turn toward the playful tune. A sleek catamaran, with a black-and-white-striped canopy, sails into view from around the rocks. A man plays the accordion as his companion reclines on a pile of pillows on the carpeted deck, a wide-brimmed sun hat shielding her face. It’s a romantic sight, one that makes every person crammed on this dinghy sorry that they didn’t splurge and hire the private boat.
The music grows louder as the catamaran sails into view.
“Isn’t that wonderful?” the American woman says. “Senior love.”
I take a closer look at the catamaran. Dear God. It’s my grandmother under that hat, like a Botticelli courtesan in repose, except she’s not eating grapes, she’s being serenaded by Dominic. I’d put my face in my hands to hide, but there’s not enough room to bend my elbows.
Captain Pio calls out to the skipper of the catamaran, “Giuseppe! Yo, Giuseppe!” The skipper salutes in return. Given the way our loaded skiff is being pummeled by the waves, I’m surprised the skipper didn’t read Pio’s greeting as a distress signal. The tourists on our boat wave at the lovers, and then commence snapping their pictures of them. How odd to be on vacation and take photos of other people having fun. Gram and Dominic have their own paparazzi. I could scream, so I do.
“Gram?” I holler. My grandmother sits up, pushes back her sun hat, and peers across the water toward our boat.
“You know them?” the American woman asks from behind me. Too tight a squeeze to turn to face her, I shout, “Yes,” while facing forward.
“Valentine!” Gram waves to me. She pokes Dominic, who waves with his accordion.
“Enjoy!” I shout as we sail by. Gram settles back on the pillows and Dominic plays on.