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hands in her lap. She feels inside herself a great, and welcome,
capitulation.
I do not wish to pry.
It s something of a relief.
Yes, I can see that.
It was just . . . just so . . . She stumbles. I was part of a fam-
ily, and now I m not. They meant something to me, that family.
Has it been helpful being here? Mr. Cavalli asks, indicating
the hotel.
I think so. Yes, it has. I can t imagine what I would have done
otherwise.
Mr. Cavalli sits back on the leather banquette, one hand still
touching his coffee cup. He inhabits his clothes with gestures as
elegant as the cut of the cloth.
Sydney senses the abnormality of the meeting. The young
woman polishing the glasses will think them merely one more
illicit couple, though nothing has been done or said to indicate
that. Still, there is an agenda that isn t entirely clear to Sydney.
She could stand and leave now and not know the subtext, which
might be curiosity, or simply attraction.
But the man seems, on balance, too sophisticated to make the
usual pass. He would know her to be skittish now on the subject
of love, a bad bet all around. Either too eager or unwilling.
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Body Surfing
* * *
I was in love once, Mr. Cavalli says, perhaps wishing to share
a confidence similar to hers to balance the equation. He has per-
fect manners. Anticipating Sydney s question, he offers, She
was British. I met her at university. Her parents objected.
She must have been very young, then, Sydney says, to allow
her parents such sway.
I think some part of her was afraid of me, he says, afraid
that I would want to live in Naples.
Would you have done that? she asks.
Not if she didn t want to. I don t think she ever understood
the power she had over me.
Does she still? Have that power?
Oh, yes, he answers, smiling.
He has, Sydney thinks, a lovely smile. His eyes are large and
heavy-lidded, his hairline high on his forehead. He might be any
age between thirty and forty-five.
What happened to her? Sydney asks.
She has risen quite high up at her bank.
Sydney takes a sip of coffee. Maybe she s more secure now
and would defy her parents.
This was years ago, Mr. Cavalli says. She has been married
and divorced since then.
I ll bet the parents are sorry now, Sydney says.
The man smiles. I doubt they give it a single thought. They
are not in the least the sort of people who ever look back.
Sydney sighs. I wish I could be like that, she says.
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Anita Shreve
No, you do not, he says. To never think about your actions,
your past, what might have been? All the rich tapestry that was
your life until this moment?
I ve been hoping for amnesia, Sydney says.
Are you in pain right now? he asks, touching the cast on her
wrist with the tips of his fingers.
Hardly ever, Sydney says. She cannot feel the touch. If she
can t feel it, it doesn t count as a touch in the usual sense. Some-
times at night it aches.
When does it come off? he asks, removing his fingers.
In five weeks.
So you will stay here until then?
Oh, no, Sydney says. I m going to run out of money in
four days.
Immediately, she is embarrassed. I can t stay, she adds. I
have a lot to do. I have to move out of the apartment I shared
with . . . with Jeff, she says, naming the treacherous fianc. I
have to find a new place.
In Boston?
Possibly.
A waiter comes to ask if he can fill their cups with hot coffee.
Both decline. Neither has touched any of the pastries, though
Sydney thinks the meringues appealing. I didn t know him very
well, she says suddenly, surprising even herself. Jeff, I mean. In
retrospect, and I ve been thinking about this, there was a great
deal I didn t know about him. He was often daydreaming. About
what, I never knew.
You didn t ask?
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Body Surfing
I thought I would have years to discover where he went in his
mind.
You have had a bad time of it, both emotionally and physi-
cally, Mr. Cavalli says.
Sydney shifts her wrist in her lap. The odd thing is, she says,
I was almost grateful for the accident. I felt that it woke me up
from a deep sleep. It was a relief to feel real pain, physical pain. I
don t know if I m making myself clear.
Absolutely clear. May I ask you what your fianc does?
He s a professor at MIT, she says. She thinks a moment.
You re not at MIT, are you?
No, no, he says. I m in the import-export business.
That might mean anything, Sydney thinks. Do you live
here? she asks. In Boston?
I am back and forth, London and Boston.
She thinks him evasive. To ask any more questions, however,
would be rude, and there is no need for that. Beyond a certain
point, she doesn t care what he does.
I knew that something was missing, Sydney says after a time.
There was a slightly unreal quality to all of it.
You re speaking of your fianc.
It was a very fast courtship. She remembers the day Jeff sat
down with her on the porch and announced that he d left Vic-
toria for her. And how she thought he was so far ahead of her
already. It s as though we skipped several steps that now, in ret-
rospect, seem necessary.
What steps? he asks, pouring himself a second cup of coffee.
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Anita Shreve
A mutual recognition that you re both moving closer to
something. The relationship seemed to have happened before I
even realized it.
This was your first love? he asks.
I d been married twice before, she says. Sydney waits for a
flicker of surprise to cross Mr. Cavalli s face, but he has perfect
poise. One of my husbands died, she explains. The other one
I divorced.
I am very sorry, Mr. Cavalli says.
Sydney tells him about Andrew and Daniel. She tells him, too,
about how she and her mother left her father one day in New
York and moved to western Massachusetts, and about how she s
never quite forgiven herself for allowing that to happen. She tells
him about Mr. and Mrs. Edwards, about Ben and Julie. In turn,
he tells her about his extended family, his annual visits to Naples.
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