Rosen blamed the keening of gulls, the gentle crash of surf on Positano’s pebble beach, and the cries of the Italian children at play. They had lulled him, and he had gradually forgotten his ship, anchored far to the south, forgotten ship’s security, and forgotten even himself. There was no other way to explain the knuckle-headed mistake he had just made, telling Fritzi that the USS America’s next port of call was Rota, Spain. Or the worse mistake, telling her the exact dates in May. You’re in over your head, old boy, he told himself, and bit his tongue, his senses having finally roused toward alarm. You’re here to enjoy Italy, not commit your future.
Fritzi’s head lifted, at the mention of Rota. He felt her eyes on him, her cool green gaze, before she resettled herself more firmly against his shoulder. The sun’s heat, pressing his whole body into the towel, forbid his raising so much as an eyelid. Even the traffic rumbling uphill along Via Cristoforo Colombo had a constant, dreamy quality, though this morning he’d been cursing as they’d fought their way from Naples on the borrowed motorbike.
Some minutes passed, their only marker the frictionless turning of the earth, and a designation on the calendar, April 7, 1967, slowly vanishing and never to come again. Fritzi’s flat belly moved with her breath beneath his hand, both of them drifting while her fingers made little circles against his chest. He turned slightly, to catch the cypress fragrance of her hair.
“Really?” she asked, sitting up and turning toward him. He opened his eyes, knowing what he would...
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