After my friend and I left Sorrento, to my surprise, you called me everyday. Until one day you didn’t. So I texted you “Grazie per tutto, addio!” “Thanks for everything, goodbye!” You called immediately and invited me to “turna a Surriento” for a week, “like the song,” you said. You’d rent us a villa you said. “OK!,” I said.
That fall, I was working on an organic farm outside of Forli. You showed up to help out in the vegetable garden with your Gucci belt on. We rode horses after mucking the stalls. You were terrified and I, as I often did, just acted as if you could do it all without a shred of doubt for your capacity. You loved Valentina. She came when you called her from the pasture. I can still hear you calling, “Vaaaallllleeennnntiiiiiiiiiinaaaaaaaaa!”
You came to visit again and were weeping when I said, “Welp, I guess this is the end!” You said, “Daiii vieni a Sorrento!” “Come on, come to Sorrento.” I said that I would do no such thing, I’m a serious woman. “I’m not going to just move across the Atlantic ocean for some man.” “Just take a look, just in case!,” you appealed.
I googled “study abroad Sorrento” and had an ideal job, even if you weren’t in the picture, within 24hrs transforming a local language school into a full-fledged study abroad center. And within the year of me living and working there, we did. I’d miss many evenings in the piazza with you, working overtime writing Marine Biology and Volcanology syllabi. You never chastised me for working too much, you told your friends that I was a ragazza molto in gamba. Capable, smart, determined.
I can still smell the sun as I recollect my time with you there, sotto il sole sorrentino. I’m glad to have the sun damage on my shin, like a tattoo, reminding me. We would park the scooter in the olive grove and then climb down to where there were just towels and bodies soaking up the sun, and a tiny shed offering ice cold cans of beer. I never liked the beach or staying in the sun but I liked laying on the sun-drenched windstrewn cliffs there with you.
We lived in a lemon grove near your best friend. We’d scooter down the cobblestone path with walled vineyards on either side. On the way to work, we’d hurriedly get espresso and donuts. On hard days, in your characteristic infinite tenderness, you’d bring me gnocchi alla sorrentina for lunch.
You’d park your scooter outside the window when I made dinner and dramatically declare, “I feel like one of those men that have a wife at home with dinner waiting for him!” I’d reply, “Amò, amore mio, take out the trash, clean the toilet and do the dishes!” Amò is neapolitan for Love.