Cullen and I set the alarm but slept right through it. A knock on the door woke us up, the taxi driver. He’d come to take us to the boat, ferrying us back to Naples. We were asleep. Woke fast. Threw everything in our suitcases. (There is only one boat a day.) He zipped us to the port, we ran to the dock. The bridge to the boat was being lifted. The captain smiled and put the bridge back down. We ran on board and the boat took off at high speed, across the sea. Out in the middle of nowhere, he invited us up to the cockpit. Schools of dolphins jumped in front of the window — dozens upon dozens. “It’s your lucky day,” the captain said. The skipper drove the boat. Another skipper came up with a plate of “dolci,” Sicilian cannolli and other things, as an offering. “Let’s have a picture, the girls and me,” said the Captain. The girls. Yes, I felt sixteen again — in Italy for the first time, in love with enthusiasm and joy.
MARTHA McPHEE 