Free Siracusa by Delia Ephron Page B

from the Trevi Fountain. “Don’t go to the fountain without me. Promise?” I called to Michael, who couldn’t care less about ice cream. He lagged behind, preoccupied with his cell, scrolling for e-mail. “Fuck,” I heard him say. He’d hit the wrong key. I knew the source of his rage with no actual knowledge, the way a wife assembles a catalog of her husband’s moods and the causes. His fingers are thick. Managing his phone triggers irritation.
    According to my friend Rachel, who is very reliable, San Crispino makes the best ice cream in Rome. The other gelato bars seemed to have waltzed off a boardwalk. Their flavors, in garish colors, sculpted and swirled, goopy with sprinkles and zigzags of chocolate syrup, lay side by side in long trays looking cheap and overexposed. San Crispino was sleek. The gelatos in hues so alluring they might be shades of chiffon were hidden under shiny aluminum tops and dispensed by a man more labtechnician than counterman, spotless in a white collarless shirt, white pants, white apron, and a white skullcap.
    Taylor and Snow consulted briefly and confidentially, and Taylor related their decision, identical doubles in cups—caramel with meringue and coconut. Finn placed their order and paid. How could anyone decide quickly? How could anyone not want to taste everything? “I envy you,” I told her. “I envy your decision-making abilities.”
    She laughed. “Snow knows what she likes.” She herded her out, a sheepdog with only one sheep in her flock, leaving Finn and me to frolic.
    We shared dabs off miniature plastic spoons—ginger, cinnamon, pistachio, walnut. The bright light inside tricked the world outside into near darkness. People meandering down the street or mingling as they finished their cones or cups, visible through the plate glass, were mere silhouettes. Out of the corner of my eye, as Finn was offering a taste of
melone
, I spied Michael, not by the shape of his head, which I might have because it’s big like a pineapple, but by movement. A hand up to his mouth, a quick jerk back.
    Oh, no, he’s having fun without me.
That was my thought.
    Michael carried a sterling silver flask in his right front pocket. Occasionally he might spike our coffees with brandy or his favorite Scotch, enlivening some otherwise quotidian moment, having BLTs at BJ’s on Lexington Avenue. At dinner parties while guests were dissecting the drama of the moment like Bernie Madoff, Michael would tap my knee under the table. If we weren’t sitting together, he might simply reference the doorwith his eyes, and we would meet someplace private like the powder room or the hall and take a slug. A quickie juice-up. Afterward, he would pocket the flask and slide his hand up my thigh or cup my breast. This was a promise: more later at home.
    Since liquor was served, why did we do it? Because it was our secret society inside a society—New York’s literary world—that wasn’t secret but it was exclusive. Our saucing up—the flask—was infrequent. Michael, in charge, was unpredictable. We weren’t going around tipsy. I know couples who traded looks at dinner and it always bugged me, these silent opinions they were exchanging that might be about me. When it was our game, I loved it. We made wagers too.
I bet you Sam will mention Harvard. Or Miranda will serve pasta. Will it take Ray under a half hour or over to mention that print is dead and to drop six digital terms that no one understands?
The payout was usually a sexual favor. Michael participated in all things social. People wanted to know what he thought, and he told them, and made fun of them later (like Julien, Michael’s alter ego, the hero of his work in progress).
    When Michael was introducing me to his world, he pointed out that in so many “smart” conversations, the subtext was the superiority of our way of life. Not only that, he said, it’s true, our life is superior, confirmed in every aspect, not simply because we’re not