LITMIR.BIZ

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in a sharply pressed suit.

      “Hannah di Boston,” Stefano explains.

      “Carlo,” the man says, taking my hand and gripping it a bit too tightly. Then the conversation resumes and I am forgotten, except by Luca, who asks what I’ve been doing in Italy. I think for a moment and then tell him about my trip to Siena, which seems the safest answer.

      “Siena,” he says, and nods. “Beautiful city. Ma Firenze è più bella, no?”

      I confirm that, yes, Florence is more beautiful, and he pats my knee approvingly, letting it linger a moment before reaching for his drink. I feel comfortable with him, trust his smile in this candlelight. I tell him about the chapel of St. Catherine.

      “Ah, Santa Caterina,” he hums. “An interesting woman.”

      There is a church in Florence I should visit, he says. San Frediano in Cestello. San Frediano in Cestello, I repeat to myself. I finish my drink and go to order another. I walk with ease, glide through the crowd, and smile at the bartender, who now smiles back. People have begun dancing to a song that is vaguely familiar.

      Francesca. I catch the name when I return as the table erupts in laughter.

      “Francesca?” I repeat, and Luca turns, surprised, as the other men continue bantering.

      “Sì, Francesca. It is really funny, no?” He grins and then takes in my blank look. “Non hai capito?”

      “No, you speak too quickly.”

      “Hmm,” he considers. “Only English, then. I practice, va bene?”

      “All right.”

      “Allora.” Luca takes a deep breath and begins with effort. “You know Francesca, yes? She always goes out in the wide boats, perché she is afraid.”

      The larger wooden sculls. They sit firm in the water, don’t tremble with each stroke like the sleek aluminum ones.

      “So today,” he continues, “we told her to try a little one. But she says, ‘No! No! No!’” Here Luca does his best Francesca impression, pursing his lips and crossing his arms as he shakes his head tersely from side to side. “But we laugh at her e poi she says va bene. Allora, Correggio puts her in the boat and she goes. She has on little… sunglasses, yes? And she waves like we are stupid.”

      Luca is already starting to chuckle between words as he recounts the scene. I can feel the warmth coming off him.

      “She has a few strokes e poi she screams. Just at the boat is, ah, una nutria.”

      “A what?”

      Luca pinches up his face and raises his hands in small fists. Carlo laughs roughly across the table.

      “Oh.” I grimace. “You mean the rats.” I’ve seen them waddling along the riverbanks and paddling in open water with only their heads showing.

      “No!” Luca says earnestly, putting his hand on my forearm. “Not a rat. No. Una nutria. Cute, yes?”

      “No,” I say definitively. “There is nothing cute about a massive river rodent.”

      Stefano returns with more drinks and Luca pauses to take one.

      “Allora,” he continues. “They do not bother us. No problem. But Francesca waves her arms e allora the boat is shaking and we shout, ‘Tranquilla!’ but she moves too much e poi she is in the water. E la povera nutria—”

      “Poor Francesca.” I laugh easily and the sound surprises me.

      “Poor Francesca?” Carlo says loud. “Macché povera Francesca.”

      Luca ignores him. “He tries to swim but Francesca, she moves e poi she hits la nutria! Allora, la nutria screams and tries to go away però he is stuck nella… nella…”

      “In the current?” I suggest.

      “Sì. In the current. Exactly. Crazy. Ah, Francesca,” he says, and sighs.

      Luca is about to say something more, but Carlo interrupts him again, his voice sloppy, and I catch the word puttana. Slut. All the men fall silent.

      “Really?” I throw into the silence, feeling bolder with the alcohol coursing through me, and then all the eyes are on me, surprised.

      But Carlo’s gaze remains hard. “Why, you know her?”

      “Ma dai,” Luca says. “Lascia perdere, Carlo. You’re drunk.”

      “He only acts like this to impress you,” Carlo says with a smile that makes my skin crawl. “Stai attenta, eh? He’s just like any man.”

      Luca pushes back his chair, but Stefano cuts in. “Basta, ragazzi. Carlo—it’s enough.”

      “Sì, basta,” Gianni echoes.

      Carlo looks at Luca, still standing, and then shrugs. “And Mariotti? Where is that chicken shit?”

      Luca shoots him a glance but sits back down. “Sorry,” he says to me as the men’s conversation picks up again.

      “It’s all right.”

      “If you can guess, it is not the first time Carlo speaks like this. But a crazy story, no?” And then he’s drawn back into the group as though nothing had occurred.

      I walk to the bar and get another drink, a little unsteady, but I make it back to the table. I sit down slowly and try to look interested. Then I begin with the morning. The coffee, the toast, choked down. The salad at lunch—strings of tuna, tomatoes rolled to the side. The evening—the bar after the game, and I remember the brusque waiter, the wooden table, the plastic menu with its grease stains, but what had I eaten? I can’t remember. Not enough. Not enough for these drinks, and I feel something in my stomach now: dread.

      I look to the men, try to follow their conversation, but something has changed and I can no longer understand it. I watch their lips move and try to stay calm as their voices spin, peppered with exclamations and laughter. Prendere in giro, a term I’ve come to know. Take for a ride. The Italians use it when they’re teasing someone and, with these words spinning around me, I begin to suspect that I’m the reason for their laughter.

      I anchor my gaze to Luca’s profile to keep the evening from dissolving. For a while this works.

      Things kept falling around me.

      “What happened?” Julian asked, running his fingers along the inside of my forearm, the concern on his face growing. It was April. We were in the South End, back at the bar where we’d met eight months before, an anniversary of sorts.

      Earlier that evening I had knocked everything off the glass shelves in my bathroom. Reaching for one item, I’d upended them all. They’d fallen everywhere, the lipstick cradled in the sink, the mascara rolling across the floor. My hands had darted out to stop the avalanche and my arm caught the edge of the mirror. Chipped for years, waiting to catch me, it had drawn a deep red line in my flesh. I’d tried to hide that bloody line, but he had found it. His thumb grazed over the wound.

      “What happened?” he asked again.

      “It was an accident.”

      “Another one?” His concern was tilting into suspicion and it made me bristle.

      “I’m fine,” I said. I still had my job. Everything was in balance. He could only disrupt it.

      “Hannah, why won’t you talk to me? This isn’t normal.”

      I pulled my arm away, mean. “What’s not normal? Maybe you’re not normal.”

      He was right, though. It wasn’t normal. Things were coming loose.

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