In the shade, the ring was lavender-blue. In the sun, it had been flecked with pink, green, and white. She moved her hand slightly and could see more colors. It was like looking into the sea, to where the sun struck stones.
She looked back at the water, half expecting, now, to see the French people in the rowboat. She saw that the clouds were darker pink.
“I paid the lemon man,” Andrew said, coming up behind her. “As usual, he claimed there were whole sacks of lemons he had left against the gate, and I played the fool, the way I always do. I told him that we asked for, and received, only one sack of lemons, and that whatever happened to the others was his problem.”
Andrew sat down. He looked at her empty wineglass. Or he might have been looking beyond that, out to the water.
“Every week,” he sighed, “the same thing. He rings, and I take in a sack of lemons, and he refuses to take the money. Then he comes at the end of the week asking for money for two or three sacks of lemons — only one of which was ever put in my hands. The others never existed.” Andrew sighed again. “What do you think he would do if I said, ‘But what do you mean, Signor Zito, three sacks of lemons? I must pay you for the ten sacks of lemons we received. We have had the most wonderful lemonade. The most remarkable lemon custard. We have baked lemon meringue pies and mixed our morning orange juice with the juice of fresh-squeezed lemons. Let me give you more money. Let me give you everything I have. Let me pay you anything you want for your wonderful lemons.’ ”
His tone of voice was cold. Frightening. He was too often upset, and sometimes it frightened her. She clamped her hand over his, and he took a deep breath and stopped talking. She looked at him, and it suddenly seemed clear that what had been charming petulance when he was younger was now a kind of craziness — a craziness he did not even think about containing. Or what if he was right, and things were not as simple as she pretended? What if the boys she spoke to every day really did desire her and wish him harm? What if the person who wrote that story had been right, and Americans really were materialistic — so materialistic that they became paranoid and thought everyone was out to cheat them?
“What’s that?” Andrew said. She had been so lost in her confusion that she started when he spoke.
“What?” she said.
“That,” he said, and pulled his hand out from under hers.
They were both looking at the opal ring.
“From one of the beachboys,” she said.
He frowned. “Are you telling me that ring isn’t real?”
She put her hand in her lap. “No,” she said. “Obviously it’s real. You don’t think one of the boys would be crazy enough about me to give me a real ring?”
“I assume I was wrong, and it’s a cheap imitation,” he said. “No. I am not so stupid that I think one of those boys gave you an expensive ring. Although I do admit the possibility that you bought yourself a ring.”
He raised a finger and summoned the waiter. He ordered tea with milk. He looked straight ahead, to the beach. It was now deserted, except for the mother and baby. The baby had stopped throwing stones and was being rocked in its mother’s arms. Christine excused herself and walked across the wooden planks to the bar at the back of the Cobalto, where the waiter was ordering tea from the bartender.
“Excuse me,” she said quietly. “Do you have a pen and a piece of paper?”
The man behind the bar produced a pencil and handed her a business card. He turned and began to pour boiling water into a teapot.
She wondered whether the man thought that a pen and a pencil were interchangeable, and whether a business card was the same as a piece of paper. Was he being perverse, or did he not understand her request very well? All right, she thought. I’ll keep it brief.
As she wrote, she reminded herself that it was a calm sea, and that the woman could not possibly be dead. “I had to leave,” she wrote. “There is no phone at the villa we are renting. I will be here tomorrow at ten, with your ring.” She signed her name, then handed the card to the bartender. “It’s very important,” she said. “A woman is going to come in, expecting to find me. A Frenchwoman. If you see someone who’s very upset—” She stopped, looking at the puzzled expression on the bartender’s face. “Very important,” she said again. “The woman had two friends. She’s very pretty. She’s been out boating.” She looked at the card she had given the bartender. He held it, without looking at what she had written. “Grazie,” she said.
“Prego,” he said. He put the card down by the cash register and then — perhaps because she was looking — did something that struck her as appropriately ironic: he put a lemon on top of the card, to weigh it down.
“Grazie,” she said again.
“Prego,” he said.
She went back to the table and sat, looking not toward the cliff beyond which the French people’s boat had disappeared, but in the other direction, toward Positano. They said little, but during the silence she decided — in the way that tourists are supposed to have epiphanies on vacations, at sunset — that there was such a thing as fate, and that she was fated to be with Andrew.
When he finished his tea, they rose together and went to the bar and paid. She did not think she was imagining that the owner nodded his head twice, and that the second nod was a little conspiratorial signal.
From the doors that opened onto the balcony outside their bedroom she could see more of the Mediterranean than from the Cobalto; at this vantage point, high above the Via Torricella, it was almost possible to have a bird’s-eye view. From here, the Luna pool was only a dark blue speck. There was not one boat on the Mediterranean. She heard the warning honking of the bus drivers below and the buzzing sound the motorcycles made. The intermittent noise only made her think how quiet it was most of the time. Often, she could hear the breeze rustling the leaves of the lemon trees.
Andrew was asleep in the room, his breathing as steady as the surf rolling in to shore. He went to bed rather early now, and she often stood on the balcony for a while, before going in to read.
Years ago, when they were first together, she had worn a diamond engagement ring in a Tiffany setting, the diamond held in place by little prongs that rose up and curved against it, from a thin gold band. Now she had no idea what had become of the ring, which she had returned to him, tearfully, in Paris. When they later married, he gave her only a plain gold band. It made her feel suddenly old, to remember things she had not thought about in years — to miss them, and to want them back. She had to stop herself, because her impulse was to go into the bedroom and wake him up and ask him what had become of the ring.
She did go in, but she did not disturb him. Instead, she walked quietly to the bed and sat on the side of it, then reached over and turned off the little bedside lamp. Then she carefully stretched out and pulled the covers over her. She began to breathe in time with his breathing, as she often did, trying to see if, by imitation, she could sink into easy sleep.
With her eyes closed, she remembered movement: the birds sailing between high cliffs, boats on the water. It was possible, standing high up, as she often did in Italy, to actually look down on the birds in their flight: small specks below, slowly swooping from place to place. The tiny boats on the sea seemed no more consequential than sunbeams, glinting on the surface of the water.
Unaccustomed to wearing jewelry, she rubbed the band of the ring on her finger as she began to fall asleep. Although it was not a conscious thought, something was wrong — something about the ring bothered her, like a grain of sand in an oyster.