The following is an excerpt from an early chapter of my memoir, one week after I arrived Italy, September 2001.
A late summer breeze swept across my bare shoulders as I left the University of Pavia dormitory and I paused to wrap a thin, rose-colored scarf around my neck. The historic campus, founded in 1361 and one of the oldest in the world, was quiet. Students hadn’t yet arrived for the Fall semester and only attendees of the European Muscle Conference filled the classrooms, dormitories and walkways. I could hear church bells ringing from the small Lombardy hill town of Pavia a few miles away. The light fabric of my blue sun dress fluttered around my ankles and I wondered for the hundredth time if I was dressed appropriately for the conference reception dinner. The dress code for these things was never clear, and it didn’t help that scientists were, by and large, eccentric and nonconformist. If you were an important scientist, you could show up for dinner or a keynote lecture in your pajamas and no one would bat an eye. I wasn’t an important scientist.
The paved stone path that wound through the campus was dimly lit and a carpet of stars was visible in the night sky. The eighth and final bong of the church bells faded as I approached the College di Borneo and a din of voices rose above the old stone walls of the university garden. Music from a string quartet mixed with the melodic sounds of conversations in Italian, and the clinking of stemmed crystal rose above the steady buzz of cicadas in nearby trees. As I entered the garden I noticed with relief that the women were in dresses and the men in dark suit jackets. Strings of white lights swung on the breeze, throwing shadows of scientists upon the dark lawn. The scent of Bougainvillea drifted in the air as waiters dressed in black tie and wearing white gloves circled the garden passing out h’ordeuvres and glasses of sparkling wine.
I gathered the edge of my dress in my hand and, not seeing any of my colleagues from the University of Florence, walked slowly towards the back corner of the garden. I stood scanning the crowd of scientists for familiar faces, thinking about what I could say to join a conversation. A handsome young waiter approached carrying a tray of wine glasses.
“Buona sera, signorina,” he said, leaning towards me as he spoke, his dark brown eyes like saucers in the dim light of the garden. Startled, I felt my cheeks flush with his stare, the richness of his voice, his proximity.
He spoke in Italian, perhaps asking me something about the wine. I smiled, noticed my hand shake as I reached for a wine glass. Don’t topple his entire tray! He isn’t flirting, only delivering my wine, I reminded myself. Like the man at the hotel reception desk in Florence that had winked at me at 3 in the morning. It was just the Italian way.
“Grazie,” I said, attempting to hold his gaze. He was only slightly taller than me and he stood so close, we were almost nose to nose. Was he waiting for me to speak? My mind raced for something to say in Italian. I held up my glass and took a small sip of the wine. The waiter smiled and slowly turned to walk away, but not before his eyes moved appreciably up and down the entire length of my body. I stood frozen, as stunned as if he had leaned in and kissed me on the lips. I remembered to swallow the sip of wine on my tongue, my lips curling into a smile as the effervescent liquid hit the back of my throat.
