Summer Desserts

me alone,” she managed as the first tears spilled out. “Leave me completely alone.”
    The tears undermined him as her temper never would have done. “I can’t do that.” But he released her when he wanted to hold her. “I’ll give you some time, maybe we both need time, but we’ll have to come back to this.”
    “Just go away.” She never allowed tears in front of anyone. Though she tried to dash them away, others fell quickly. “Go away.” On the repetition she turned from him, holding herself stiff until she heard the click of the door.
    She looked around, and though he was gone, he was everywhere. Dropping to the couch, she let herself weep and wished she were anywhere else.
     
    She hadn’t come to Rome for the cathedrals or the fountains or the art. Nor had she come for culture or history. As Summer took a wicked cab ride from the airport into the city, she was more grateful for the crowded streets and noise than the antiquity. Perhaps she’d stayed in America too long this time. Europe was fast cars, crumbling ruins and palaces. She needed Europe again, Summer told herself. As she zipped past the Trevi Fountain she thought of Philadelphia.
    A few days away, she thought. Just a few days away, doing what she was best at, and everything would fall back into perspective again. She’d made a mistake with Blake—she’d known from the beginning it had been a mistake to get involved. Now, it was up to her to break it off, quickly, completely. Before long he’d be grateful to her for preventing him from making an even larger mistake. Marriage—to her. Yes, she imagined he’d be vastly relieved, within even a few weeks.
    Summer sat in the back of the cab watching Rome skim by and was more miserable than she’d ever been in her life.
    When the cab squealed to a halt at the curb she climbed out. She stood for a moment, a slender woman in white fedora and jacket with a snakeskin bag slung carelessly over one shoulder. She was dressed like a woman of confidence and experience. In her eyes was a child who was lost.
    Mechanically she paid off the driver, accepted her bag and his bow, then turned away. It was only just past 10:00 A.M. in Rome, and already hot under a spectacular sky. She remembered she’d left Philadelphia in a thunderstorm. Walking up the steps to an old, distinguished building, she knockedsharply five times. After a reasonable wait, she knocked again, harder.
    When the door opened, she looked at the man in the short silk robe. It was embroidered, she noticed, with peacocks. On anyone else it would’ve looked absurd. His hair was tousled, his eyes half-closed. A night’s growth of beard shadowed his chin.
    “Hello, Carlo. Wake you up?”
    “Summer!” He swallowed the string of Italian abuse that had been on his tongue and grabbed her. “A surprise, sì ?” He kissed her soundly, twice, then drew her away. “But why do you bring me a surprise at dawn?”
    “It’s after ten.”
    “Ten is dawn when you don’t begin to sleep until five. But come in, come in. I don’t forget you come for Gravanti’s birthday.”
    Outside, Carlo’s home was distinguished. Inside it was opulent. Dominated by marble and gold, the entrance hall only demonstrated the beginning of his penchant for the luxurious. They walked through and under arches into a living area crowded with treasures, small and large. Most of them had been given to him by pleased clients—or women. Carlo had a talent for picking lovers who remained amiable even when they were no longer lovers.
    There was a brocade at the windows, Oriental carpets on the floor and a Tintoretto on the wall. Two sofas were piled with cushions deep enough to swim in. An alabaster lion, nearly two feet in height, sat beside one. A three-tiered chandelier shot out splinters of refracted light from its crystals.
    She ran her finger down a porcelain ewer in delicate Chinese blue and white. “New?”
    “Sì.”
    “Medici?”
    “But of course. A gift from a…friend.”
    “Your friends are always remarkably generous.”
    He grinned. “But then, so am I.”
    “Carlo?”
    The husky, impatient voice came from up the curving marble stairs. Carlo glanced up, then looked back at Summer and grinned again.
    Summer removed her white fedora. “A friend, I take it.”
    “You’ll give me a moment, cara. ” He was heading for the steps as he spoke. “Perhaps you could go into the kitchen, make coffee.”
    “And stay out of the way,” Summer finished