Free Siracusa by Delia Ephron

following, Lizzie?”
    Almost every encounter we had alone featured a moment from our past—a flash of a flirt or a fight or a joke. In this case he’d fed me fried clams in the middle of—well, some things are better left mysterious. And here he was telling me not to be distracted when he was the king of distraction. During our short life as a couple, his attraction to anyone or anything other than me was constant and indiscriminate. He’d stop to chat up a passing dog, jump in a truck driven by someone he’d gone to high school with. Something as insignificant as a bobbing balloon might intrigue him. With Finn, the time between when we fell for each other and drove each other crazy was no time at all.
    “Try it again,” he said.
    I closed my eyes and took another bite. “It might be the greatest pizza I’ve ever tasted. It’s like—”
    He put his hand over my mouth. “Never describe taste. You can only desecrate it.
Merci bien, Violetta
,” he said to the pizza lady.
“Ici, Lizzie. Elle l’aime aussi.”
    “
Desecrate
is not what you mean.”
    “Hold out your hand.”
    I did. He put the balled-up dirty napkin into it and closed my hand around it. “When are you dumping Michael?”
    “Don’t project your escape fantasies onto me, Finn.” Just like him to do that. My marriage made sense and his didn’t. His marriage was a stagnant pond. He and Taylor hadn’t had sex since, I had no idea really but they never touched. Never. His attraction to Jessa—she had to be Taylor’s opposite. I imagined her in huge rubber boots wading into the Maine surf, dragging a dinghy, climbing in deftly as if it were easy, barely a splash, definitely no squeal, no near capsizing, then with muscled arms she would power the oars, plunging the boat through high waves before switching on the motor. “How do they start motors on dinghies?” I asked him. “That string they pull—what is that?”
    “The starter,” said Finn. “You’re an idiot.”
    His hands on my shoulders, he steered me through the market, pausing to admire vats of olives and
pomodori secchi
, moon over vinegars, curse airport security because he couldn’t bring home exotic olive oils. “Tay had us up at seven,” said Finn. “By nine we were at the top of the Capitoline Hill.” He ranted on about his chic cultured wife the way husbands do when they secretly admire them, at least that was my take. By eleven they’d toured the Forum, imagined Caesar holding forth with the help of their guide, Signor Sixty-Euros-an-Hour Giorgio.
    A tour group swarmed in and swallowed us up. We found ourselves being lectured in a Scandinavian language.
    “Is Siracusa a rat fuck of tourists?” said Finn.
    “I know. It’s insane here, isn’t it? And yet who wouldn’t want to come to Rome?”
    Finn pulled me to another stall. Off a tray of samples he picked up a thimble of wine. “To Siracusa,” he said. He gave me a sip before finishing it off, getting into a discussion of Sicilian reds, and dropping the name of Angelo Gaja.

Michael
    N
O WAY TO TAMP DOWN C HARISMA
, the man shrugged, reconsidering events, deflecting responsibility. He patted his face with a napkin. It was suffocating in Siracusa. No breeze, no flow. He decided against dissecting his own behavior and motives in favor of burying his head in the
Herald Tribune
while sipping an excellent espresso. The café at least was hidden. It even had armchairs.
    Did he have a role? Was he collateral damage or an instigator? Stop here. He was getting ahead of the story. He wasn’t yet in Siracusa.
    Rome, day two.
    Gravitated to Snow by default. Preferred the child. She was a way to avoid Lizzie. Inadvertently, it turned out, to charm Taylor and show up Finn. Taylor was a nervous woman. I liked to study her contrived style. Made a mental note to someday write a woman who masks her insecurity and at the same time parades it in a fashion she doesn’t understand.
    Plan in motion: Sending Lizzie off to Finn was