Free Page Turner Pa by David Leavitt

"was stunning."
    "He's so knowledgeable!" Pamela caressed his cheek. "As for me, I had an absolute ball. After my hair I got a manicure
and
a pedicure. Then I bought this new outfit. At Armani! Cost an arm and a leg, but that's what credit cards are for, right, Pauly?"
    "Right," Paul said, as taking a hundred-lire coin from his pocket, he hurled it gamely into the fountain.
    Â 
    Across the city, meanwhile, in an elegant, otherwise empty restaurant in Parioli, Signore Giovanni Batisti of the Amici della Música di Roma, his wife, and several prominent local citizens were sitting at a large table, drinking mineral water and eating stale bread.
    "It's unusual for Americans to be so late," Signore Batisti said, looking at his watch as the clock struck the half hour.
    "The poor man's probably stuck in traffic," his wife answered.
    "Traffic! It's the construction on Via Arenula," said another man.
    "And the smog!"
    Signore Batisti shook his head. "Altogether I fear Rome may be making a very bad impression on Mr. Kennington."
    A general murmur of concurrence.
    And the waiter brought another bottle of mineral water.

7
    T HE BOYS were late again. At her table outside the Bar della Pace, Pamela checked her watch, nibbled a peanut, took a tiny sip from her mineral water. One of the mysteries of travel is that it telescopes ritual; thus, after only a few days, the three of them were already making it their habit to meet "every" afternoon at the Bar della Pace, and "every" afternoon the boys were late. She didn't mind—indeed, it was her intention to encourage the happy rapport that seemed to be blossoming between them—and yet if they could have been on time just once ... well, she had to admit, it would have pleased her. (Not wishing them to find her with an empty glass, she drank another millimeter's worth of water.) For mightn't his efforts to win Paul over be part of a larger strategy? And if they were, what might that strategy be? If only he'd give her a clear signal...(She blushed at the thought of it, the hope of it, which kept her buoyed in the wake of Kelso's betrayal.) Meanwhile a cat leapt down from a parked car to beg for a peanut. Ivy, as well as shadows of ivy, climbed the stone walls. A Vespa pulled up to the bar, and a man in a black double-breasted suit climbed off of it, his thick graying hair closely cropped, his mustache plump. Smiling, he took the table next to hers. The cat ran off. He ordered a coffee, removed from his jacket pockets a cellular telephone, a lighter, and a pack of cigarettes, which he arranged carefully on the tabletop like attributes in a Bronzino portrait. From another pocket he extracted and put on a pair of sunglasses. "
Vuole?
" he asked, waving a cigarette in Pamela's direction.
    "Oh, no thanks," she said. "
Grazie.
I don't smoke."
    He smiled again, took off his sunglasses, stared at her face, her neck, her breasts. She was scandalized and thrilled. It occurred to her dimly that she was an attractive woman. In her marriage she had never thought of herself as an attractive woman. But now a Roman coin dangled from a thin gold chain between her breasts. She was wearing an ecru linen jacket and slacks from Armani, a white linen blouse with lace trim, Ferragamo shoes. All charged on Kelso's credit card.
    Feeling bold, she smiled back. Then the boys arrived. They looked happy, sleepy. "Hello!" Pamela said, giving a backward glance to her admirer and trying to stifle—how odd!—a sense of disappointment.
    "Pamela, you look magnificent."
    "Thank you, Richard. Sit down, sit down. And tell me, what mischief did you two get up to today?"
    "Well, first we went to the Baths of Caracalla," Paul said. (This was a lie. They had spent the entire day in Kennington's bed.)
    "How wonderful. And was it everything you hoped?"
    "Magnificent."
    "After that we went to the archaeological museum, since we couldn't cover everything yesterday."
    "That's why we were late."
    "Oh, it doesn't matter your