Free Love Is Strange (A Paranormal Romance) by Bruce Sterling Page A

accident.”
    “ Matrimonio all’Italiana , that’s as old as the hills!”
    The posh little street had once been a poor island mule-track, narrow, twisty, and wretched. Then, tourism had been invented. Now, the street was jeweled with fancy Italian boutiques. The titans, the great lords of la Moda : Prada, Versace, Bulgari, Valentino.
    Farfalla knew every one of these Italian fashion empires. Each one was built on fear and envy and the ghostly bones of sweatshops, but they were genuine marvels of world civilization.
    Farfalla knew that they were evil, yes, like a vampire tiara of blood diamonds, but there was no such thing as glamour without evil. Glamour with no evil was like that so-called ‘fashion’ from Finland. Like ‘Marimekko’— clean, bright, terrible, stainless Finnish clothing. Farfalla would rather jump off a bridge than wear Marimekko.
    The Professor ignored all the lovely stores and their enticing goods. She headed straight for a beat-up news kiosk.
    This grimy popular news-stand carried racks of magazines in Italian, English, French, German, Arabic, and Japanese. The kiosk also offered shrink-wrapped movies, inflatable beach toys, lighters, tissues, and sleazy pin-up calendars.
    It also had one large rack of mass-market paperback novels. Professor Milo plucked up a fat Italian paperback. The book’s cover was framed in hot pink, with a comely 1930s-style brunette, smiling in winsome soft focus. “Farfalla, dear, what is this book?”
    “That book is a diary. The Intimate Confessions of Claretta Petacci.”
    “How sweet! I must have her for my collection! I’ll take a few of these, too.” Professor Milo plucked up a slew of paperbacks.
    Farfalla paid the kiosk’s bored proprietor, a hairy-eared local in a stained wifebeater shirt, more intent on watching a soccer game than making a sale. This sullen crook didn’t want to change Professor Milo’s 100-Euro bill, but this was Capri, so he had no choice but to cater to the rich.
    Gavin reappeared, the map rustling in his hand. “Did you ladies get lost?”
    “Here,” said Professor Milo, saddling him with her bag of souvenirs.
    Gavin swung the bag of books around the end of his arm. “I’ve found your museum for you.”
    The museum that Professor Milo sought had once been a Capri vacation home built by a dentist. This long-dead American dentist was a Confederate colonel from Louisiana.
    This dentist had taken his riches — he must have been a dentist to the Victorian superstars — and built himself a private castle. The castle was unique, because he’d built it from the scattered remains of ancient Capri.
    This castle of dentistry was braced together from ancient, battered Greek columns, masses of inscribed Roman masonry, and red Roman classical bricks . Glaring medieval peaked windows were set in the castle’s thick walls, more or less at random.
    “So, what style would you call this?” Gavin said to Farfalla.
    “It’s called ‘American,’” Farfalla told him.
    “I totally love this joint! Let’s go inside!” Gavin bought three tickets.
    Like a yawning mouth, the castle looked much bigger within than it did from the outside. Inside, the Italian-American-Confederate castle had a small but pleasant courtyard, with a tiny, burbling fountain and winding stone stairs.
    A cluster of Chinese tourists were taking snapshots of the Louisiana Colonel’s kidnapped Capri statuary. These antique statues were ancient Roman women — big, thick-hipped, solid-looking Roman supermodels. They had chipped toga drapery and absurdly small heads.
    “I’m on the board of directors of a little museum about this size,” Gavin announced. “The ‘Seattle Pioneers Museum.’”
    “You direct a museum?” said Farfalla.
    “Yeah, I do the books for three museums. Seattle’s full of museums. And their endowments are an absolute mess! Museums never understand seasonal cash-flow and tangible long-lived assets.”
    “Do you like museums, Gavin?”
    “I