We speed around the island until the back of the Quisisana comes into view. The entrance to the Blue Grotto is open. Satisfied that there is no one inside, Gianluca idles the boat near the entrance. He climbs out onto a ledge, and retrieves a sign that says NON ENTRATA IL GROTTO. He hangs the sign on an old nail over the entrance, then pulls a small rowboat from an alcove behind the ledge. He drops the rowboat into the water and reaches up for me.
“You have got to be kidding.” I point to the sign. “You mean it’s true?”
I step down into his arms and he lifts me into the rowboat.
“Stay low,” Gianluca instructs me. I duck my head as we enter the grotto. At first, all that I see is a gray cavern, the stone entrance, and then, as Gianluca rows, we enter the blue.
When I was a girl, I was obsessed with panorama Easter eggs, the kind made of white sugar shells decorated with swirls of colored icing. There was a window at the end of the candy egg, and when you held it up to look inside, a scene would be depicted. With one eye, I would study a field of swirly green icing for grass, a miniature princess in a tulle skirt sitting on a tiny mushroom flecked with sugar, a green candy frog resting near her feet, and bright blue jelly beans, placed around the scene like stones in a garden. I would look inside the egg for hours, imagining what it would be like to be inside. This is the same feeling I have inside the Blue Grotto.
It’s a wonderland of slick gray stones, walls worn away by the seawater, leading to a smooth lake of sapphire blue. Light pours in through holes in the rocks overhead, making silver funnels of light on the water. At the end of this cove, and deeper into the cavern, there’s a tunnel that leads beyond this lake, and through it, I see more light piercing between the rocks and reflecting on the water, creating a dimension of depth and a deeper blue.
“You can swim,” he says.
“Seriously?”
Gianluca smiles. I take off my beach cover-up and slip into the water. It’s cold, but I don’t mind. I swim over to where the light comes through the faraglione. I place my hand in the silver beam, which makes my skin glisten. I swim around the edge of the lake. I touch the coral that grows on the seawall. The waxy red reeds hold to the wall tightly, beautiful veins that lead deeper into the water. I imagine how deep the coral must go, the vines rooted in the bottom of the ocean in some magical place where colors are born. I hear Gianluca enter the water. He swims toward me.
“Now I understand the sign,” I tell him. “Why would you want to share this with anyone?”
“It’s meant for sharing.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do,” he says. “Is it all you dreamed it would be?”
“Yes.”
“There are so few things in life you can say that about,” he says.
“Ain’t that the truth?”
“Follow me,” he says. I swim with Gianluca through the tunnel and deeper into the grotto to another cove, this one filled with light. When I look up it’s as if the cap on the stone mountain is gone, and this is the place the moon goes when the sun is out.
“We should go now,” Gianluca says.
I swim over to the boat and reach up for him. He pulls me in. He hands me a towel. “Nice earrings,” he says.
“They go with the suit.”
“I can see that.” He smiles.
“You know, sometimes there’s no point in fighting the inevitable,” I tell him. Of course, I’m talking earrings, not Italian isle hookups.
Once Gianluca returns the boat to its hiding place, and the sign back to the ledge, he helps me into the motorboat and we speed past the beaches of Capri and around the far side of the island where the villas of Anacapri are visible from the shore. Massive palazzos, built into the side of the mountain in layers, connected by breezy porticos, show how the rich live, and so much better than the rest of us. “We should have that view,” I tell Gianluca.
“Why?” he asks.
“Because we’d appreciate it.”
Gianluca nods at the mention of “we.” Above and beyond my bad behavior, he’s been a good friend on this trip. We have a lot in common. This is such a small thing, it seems, to have mutual interest in work and the same kinds of family issues, but we do, and it’s been nice to talk to someone who understands where I come from. I have that with Roman to some degree, but the truth is, he spends his days and nights in a very different way than Gianluca and I do. I have appreciated Gianluca’s view of the world. I suppose a tanner and a shoemaker have a marriage of true minds, we rely on each other to sustain our crafts, at least in the workshop.
Gianluca stops the boat in a calm inlet. He pulls out a picnic basket of the food I love most: fresh, crusty bread; pale green buttery olive oil; cheese; tomatoes, so ripe their skin is caramelized by the sun; and homemade wine that tastes of hearty oak, cherries, and sweet grapes. We sit in the sun and eat.
I try and make him laugh, which is easy. Gianluca has a good sense of humor, not that he’s funny himself, but he appreciates it in others. I do a drop-dead impersonation of an American tourist who tried to talk Costanzo’s prices down until finally he said to the woman, “You’re terrible. Get out.” She left in a huff. Gianluca loves that story.
We sit in the late-afternoon sun until the breeze turns cool. “It’s time to get back,” he says.
Gianluca revs up the boat, and invites me to steer. I’ve never driven a boat before, but I like to think that I’m open to trying new things, so I take the wheel of the boat with confidence and a dab of chutzpah. You would think that after driving a stick shift from Rome to Naples, commandeering this little boat would be easy. But I’m amazed by how much brute strength it takes to turn the wheel. After a few moments, I begin to feel my way on the water, and gripping the wheel just so, I use my entire body to guide the boat.
When we get close to the docks, I slow down and give Gianluca the wheel. When I let go and surrender my grip, I almost fall, but he catches me with one arm and takes the wheel with the other.
As we reach the pier, he throws a line to a boy working on the dock, who places the rope around a piling, securing the boat. Gianluca climbs out first and then lifts me up to the pier. We walk to the cab stand, and he helps me into a car. We don’t talk as the driver takes the twists and turns of the road at a clip up to the piazza and back to the Quisisana.
There’s a long night rolling out ahead of us, and I wonder where this ride will take us. One time, back in the shop, June told me a story about a married man she had an affair with, and she said, once she kissed him, she was already guilty, so why not just go the distance? I look over at Gianluca, who looks out over the hills of Capri to the blue sea below. He has a look of contentment on his face. When we reach the top, Gianluca climbs out of the taxi with me.
“I leave you now,” he says, taking my hand.
“It’s so early.” I sound disappointed. I am.
“I know. But you should have your last night to yourself. Happy birthday.” He smiles and leans down. Then he kisses me on the cheek. I must look confused, because he raises both eyebrows with a look that says, We’re not going there again. He places a small package tied with raffia into my hand. I look up to thank him, and he’s gone.
I walk back to the hotel alone. I stop in the lobby of the Quisisana and look around, imagining how much I will miss this grand entrance when I go. I decide to redo our dingy entrance on Perry Street as soon as we get home. We need a paint job, new lighting, and a rug. There’s another thing I learned in Italy-entrances matter.