“Fifty-five thousand dollars?”  Gina thought a moment.  Astonished, she asked, “You made that much in one month?  That’s almost as much as I make in a year.”

     “Dinner’s on me,” Liz said as she touched her wine glass to Gina’s. 

     Gina shouted, “Tony!  Change my order from spaghetti to Osso Bucco!  And bring us a bottle of your best vino!  Liz is buying!”

     Tony stuck his head out of the kitchen to wink.  “Bene,” he called out.  “No more mayo on hot toast for my beautiful, wealthy customers.” 

     Gina turned back to Liz to ask what had happened.

     “Zingara happened.  You told me to become Zingara and I did, so I owe my success to you.”

     Gina slid over close to Liz.  “We haven’t rapped in two weeks.  Bring me up to speed.”

     Liz told her about meeting Randy Wilcox and the adventures over the last three weeks.  “He keeps telling me he’s in love with me.  He’s very persuasive.  I think I’m in love with him,” she admitted.

     Gina excitedly crammed a piece of bread into her mouth and mumbled, “Spit it out, gal!  Don’t make me beg for the dirt.  It’s true confessions time at the old Casa.”

     Liz sighed.  “Zingara was wild, totally reckless, held nothing back.  We spent last weekend in San Diego and he told me he wants to marry me.”

     "Whoa!  Hold it!  We started with a business tale, a business affair, like the guys do.  Wham!  Bam!  Thank you ma’am for the signed order!  See you next year in 'Vegas,' same hotel, same bed.  Right?”

     “Started that way, but once Zingara burst out of her snake’s skin, she was wild.  I had forgotten about the Mafia and the Camorra in Naples, the things Zingara did.  There are reasons I don’t want to remember them or talk about them, things I never told anyone including you.  Awful things.”

     “Betta, you’ve got that god-awful lovesick look on your face.  Remember the night I told you not to crawl into the back seat of that car with Doug at the USC game?  You had the same look that night.”

     “Don’t lecture me, Gina.  Not the same story.”

     “The same story.  It’s only a warning.  You worry me.  Liz, you can't fall in love with every man who tells you he loves you!  Every man in the Valley will be rushing to Encino to sign up!"

     Liz took her plate of pasta from the waitress, stirred it with her fork, and then slowly pushed her plate away.  “I haven’t felt like this in a long time,” she said.  “A long time . . . “

     “What are you going to do if he pops the question?”

     Liz sat silent for a while, her eyes scanning the people in the restaurant.  Randy Wilcox had sat in one of the chairs here and watched her.  “I’ll marry him,” she said finally.   “Isn’t that what guys and gals in love do?”

                                                                    #

     "Why don't I have a white shirt ironed?" Doug called out from his bedroom.

     Liz placed the last two dishes inside the dishwasher then walked down the hall to Doug's bedroom.  "Did you call for the laundry maid, Sir?" she asked.

     "Dam!" he hissed.  He was sitting on the edge of his bed wearing only blue boxer shorts and a white undershirt.  "Back in the old days, when I was the king—il re--of this house, making big bucks, I always had four or five white shirts pressed and ready to wear.  Shows you how quickly things deteriorate for royalty!"

     Liz leaned against the door frame.  "That's because you sent them to the laundry when you were working, in case you forgot.  We stopped doing that when you got fired."

     "We stopped living when I got fired!  Liz, I need a white shirt for my interview tomorrow.  I really need to look sharp.  Look at these!"  He held up three wrinkled cotton shirts that had just come out of the dryer.

     Liz snatched the shirts and silently marched back to the kitchen to iron them.  They rarely spoke anymore unless there was an urgent need.  She set up the ironing board and prepared to iron the shirts.

     Doug came into the kitchen and sat on one of the chairs at the pine dining table in the nook.  "Are you peeved because you have to iron them?" he asked.

     "What do you think?  I don't remember you ironing any blouses or skirts for me while I was working, or for that matter, ever.  You don't even know how."

     "Yes," he began, talking out loud to himself, "the woman is upset.    Look, Liz, if I get this job tomorrow, you can give up the headhunting crap and return home, be a housewife again."

     Liz rammed a sleeve onto the ironing board.  "I have no intention of giving up the headhunting 'crap,’" she replied curtly.  “And in the future I'm going to be a part time housewife who doesn't cook or iron shirts.  What would I come home to?  A drunk husband running off to be with his juvenile divorcee, Cheryl?”

     Doug nodded.  "All right!  We're going to argue.  I was trying to avoid an argument.  I haven’t had a drink or seen Cheryl in over a week.  There!  Are you happy?"

     "Delirious!  At least you're honest about it."

     Doug got up and ran water to heat for instant coffee.

     “Listen, my little headhunting Superstar, you may be making a lot of money and saving my ass at the moment, and I may be old-fashioned and down and out, but I assure you that I will again be the head of my own house, and I will get some respect from you, or I won't be around.  I would like the same level of honesty from you.  You want me to believe you take all those weekend business trips alone?"

     Liz braced herself.  She was not prepared for this confrontation.  Always in the past, she had been the doting housewife who was forced to back down when the crisis developed.  She suddenly felt a release from that obligation, the fear that she had nowhere to go if she lost the battle, that Doug might walk if she seriously protested.  SAW and Randy Wilcox had given her that opportunity.  “All right," she said, as she stopped ironing.  "I am seeing someone; if that's the honesty you're referring to."

     "You are?"

     She looked over at Doug.  "Are you shocked?" she asked.

     "Frankly, yes.  I never suspected that of you."

     "You didn't?  You don't think us poor little obedient housewives, us mothers, us cooks, us laundry maids, have the right to emulate our illustrious husbands in the business world who do that sort of thing?  I mean, after all Doug, you did it twice before Cheryl and each time you swore you'd never do it again!  Then, along comes poor little Cheryl, the sobbing blonde teenage divorcee with crocodile tears and a sad, sad song—“

     "I know!  I know!  Let's not get into ancient history!"

     "Is Cheryl ancient history?"

     "Who are you seeing?" he asked.

     "None of your business!"

     "You know about Cheryl!  I want to know who you're seeing.  Damn!  You're my wife!"

     Liz resumed ironing.  Calmly, she said, "Right now, in name only.  Doug, you didn't tell me about Cheryl.  You didn't tell me our marriage was wrecked, probably ruined.  I had to find that out for myself the hard way.  Believe me, it hurt.  Now that we've reversed roles around here, and I'm the working 'person,’ I don't intend to tell you anymore than you told me.  If it's fair for a man, it should be fair for a woman!  Or, is there a double standard around here?"

     "I can't believe this!  My wife is having an affair and openly bragging about it!  That's grounds for divorce!"

     Liz stopped ironing.  "When are we going to talk about the subject?"

     Doug nodded.  "Shortly.  You suddenly seem very eager to get on with it!  Don't mash my face in my own mess!  I don't have a job.  I'm still recovering.  I'm broke, while you’re making tons of money at the moment.  I don't have another place to live.  We have to make Timmy our top priority—“

     “No!  We are the top priority.  Don’t use Timmy as a bargaining chip.  I haven’t had a husband for over three months—“

     “The shooting—“

     “Long before the shooting!  You chose not to sleep in our bedroom.  You chose to run off and play with Cheryl.  You chose to destroy our marriage and—“

     “Knock it off!” he yelled.  Doug was standing right in front of her now, his face red.  “You have humiliated me long enough.”

     “I saved your butt!  I went to work and made the money that pays the bills around here and I am going to have my say or I will leave.  Then and only then will we get around to discussing Timmy’s future.”

     Doug took a deep breath.  “All right.  We can live separately here until such time as I’m able to make a living.  Then we’ll talk about a divorce and make sensible arrangements.  So, let's just each live our separate lives here in peace until that time."

     "Fine!" she replied.  She tossed Doug the shirt she had ironed. "You can do the other two shirts, and from now on you can iron all your shirts.  Or, is ironing not one of Cheryl's numerous virtues?"

                                     #

     Liz was returning to her office after a conversation with Debbie when she learned that the walls of her office were paper thin.  She found that if she left her door open, she could hear Red Neck in his office on one side of her and Bully on the other, as if they were inside her office.  At one point, she thought she heard them talking to each other.  She went next door to Red Neck's office where she found Red Neck peering out a window through binoculars attached to a tripod, talking to Bully on his phone about superstructures.

     Liz marched over to Bully's office and found he had the same setup.  She recalled Joker talking about binocs earlier but nothing concrete registered in her mind.  "Are you two looking at buildings?" she asked.

     Bully thought her remark was hilarious.  "No ma’am!" he replied.  "We're talking about human superstructures."

     Liz went to look through his binoculars and found they were fixed on a gym a block away where some very attractive young ladies were working out in leotards, dressed the same as she dressed for aerobics.  "Disgusting!" she declared.  "You're both sick!  Disturbed!  Depraved!  Sexual deviants!"

     "Hey, Red Neck!" Bully roared into his telephone, "'Bod' says we're disturbed!  I'm OK, but you're a sexual deviant!  Whadda ya think about that?"  He turned his speaker on.

     Red Neck's voice boomed through the speaker, "I'm very disturbed at watching these beauties in my 'binocs' and having Bod in an office next to me.  Turns my breathing totally spastic.  I already asked Joker if he would fix his binocs on Bod so I could come to his office and peep, because I can’t see Bod from my office.”

     Liz shook her head as she marched back to her new office and slammed the door.  No one could hear anything when the door was closed, which was how she planned to have it most of the time.  Vege was the only senior headhunter she wanted to bond with at this moment.  And, Red Neck's continued senseless sexual remarks were beginning to irritate her.  She worried that one day he might just get serious.

     An hour later Randy Wilcox called.   "Meet me in San Francisco this weekend,” he said. 

     "Randy!  That's such short notice," Liz moaned.

     "I missed you terribly last week.  Life's not the same without you."

     Liz paced back-and-forth behind her desk, tugging the telephone line to her headset as she walked.  She eased over near her window and stared down at the traffic on Beverly Drive, below her, and west, to Rodeo Drive, where she had applied for several jobs three months ago.  That now seemed like such a long time ago.  She had strolled over to Giorgio's to shop yesterday with Vege and Miss Piggy.  They had eaten a leisurely lunch outside on Rodeo Drive, something that would have been unthinkable three months ago.  She had even given a homeless old lady a five dollar bill.  She was now in control of her life, thanks to Randy Wilcox.  He was magnetic.  He could persuade her to do anything, like making crash arrangements to be in San Francisco for the weekend.

     Randy said, "I promise we'll interview some candidates, and I'll take you to Alcatraz and lock you in a cell."

     Liz smiled.  After her last fight with Doug she was certain it was all over between them.   "All right," she agreed finally.  "But, you're going to be mighty tired when you come out of that cell!"

     He howled with delight.  "I've got something special to tell you," he added.

     "What is it?  Why can't you tell me now?"

     "No!  No!  This has to be done in person."

     After Liz hung up she was certain Randy was going to ask her to marry him.  She had a warm glow as she wheeled her swivel around to look out at Rodeo Drive.  She had come a long way from the dirty back streets of Naples to the posh palm trees lining Rodeo Drive.

                                      #  

     "I got the job!" Doug yelled when Liz arrived home at six-thirty. 

     "Congratulations," she said dryly.

     "Want one?" he asked, holding up his glass of Scotch.

     Liz shook her head.  "No, thank you.  I've got four candidates to chase down tonight and two of them have interviews tomorrow.  It's going to be a long night on the phone, probably two hours.  I need a clear head."

     Doug shrugged.  "Just offering," he said.  "I haven't had much to celebrate lately."

     Liz took her brief case to the den and sat it beside her work desk where she would make the calls later.

     Doug followed her into the den and flopped in the beige rocker.

"Remember I was telling you about 'B' and 'B' in Beverly Hills?  They're known as 'Bee-Bee', in the 'biz'.  They're an office furniture dealer.  They have eight salesmen.  I got seventy-five thousand plus bonuses and overrides which should allow me to hit a hundred thousand.  Great job!  Great job!"

     Liz smiled.  "I'm glad for you," she said.  "You haven't been the same since you got fired, back in March.  Now that I'm working, I understand what it means to have an office to go to, important things to do, goals to achieve, and to get paid well for doing it."

     He walked across to sit on the brown sofa adjacent to the desk where Liz stood sorting through her files.  "That's nice of you to say that," he declared.  There was a ring of sincerity in his voice.  "I do feel better now that the drought is over.  Are we still at war with each other?"

     Liz walked back into the kitchen with Doug right behind her.  "War is not love, Doug.  Just the opposite.  It's hate.   You may have been waging war the past four months; I wasn’t.  I'm not at war with you."

     He nodded.  "I have to give you credit: ever since you became a headhunter, you've become very articulate.  Your words cut right through to the issue, your ideas seem much clearer now than when we used to talk.  And, you don't beat around the bush.  You go right for the--"

     "Jugular!" she interrupted.  "That's how we're taught."

     "Does Timmy suspect anything?"

     Liz laughed.  "Of course he does.  I told him you and I will probably separate."

     "Why did you do that?"

     Liz got out a pot and sat it on the range.  "Because, Doug, it's honest.  It's the truth.  Have you been so out of it that you think he really hasn't observed us, doesn't know what's happening?"

     "Well . . . I don’t know.  Haven’t thought about it.  He's too young."

     Liz snorted, "I was thirteen when I was roaming the streets of Naples with my gang.  I smoked cigarettes and pot and had a boy friend.  We stole anything we could get our hands on.  We dealt with hookers and pimps and crooks!"

     He held up his hand.  "Peace!  Peace!  Liz, please!  I know you've been insecure ever since your dad's death, so I'll leave it to you and Balla to talk about your old days as Zingara with your urchin street gang.  By the way, Balla called and said you haven't talked to her in a long time and that she was feeling well.  Anyway, we're talking about our son—“ 

     "Who you've paid absolutely no attention to the past three months.  Doug, he's going to be a freshman at Taft High School this fall.  You should have told him about the birds and bees.  Have you?"

     "That's not fair!"

     "Fair would have been for his father to discuss it with him before his older friends taught him whatever it is they think they know, right or wrong!  Have you talked to him about drugs, and Aids, and other man-to-man issues that a mother would talk to a daughter about?"

     "You're coming down on me pretty hard."

     Liz went to the refrigerator, got out lettuce and tomatoes to make a salad.  "Doug," she began, "I'm fixing dinner for Timmy.  He'll be home from baseball practice in about half an hour.  Why don't we sit at the dinner table and talk to him tonight?  Tell him together that we may be separating."

     "Tonight?  Jesus!  I'm going somewhere!"

     Liz nodded.  "Let me guess where."

     "Well!  I didn't know we were having a family reunion!  Why don't you talk to him?"

     Liz glanced over at Doug.  "Me?  I'm going somewhere also!"

     Doug snorted, "Let me guess where!"

     Liz turned and walked away.  "I'm going to work!" she said.  "In our den!"

     Doug headed for the door.  "Work is a great excuse!” he called back.  “So, you really don't have time for Timmy, either."

     “No!  You’re making the excuses.  You’re his father.  This is man-to-man talk, where mothers should butt out.”

     Doug slammed the door hard when he left.

     Liz nodded silently.  Neither of them had time for Timmy anymore.  She promised herself that she would take the time one day next week, sit down and talk with him.

                                      #

     Alcatraz loomed ahead in the fog, a formidable gray concrete island.  The tour boat pitched and bobbed, forcing Liz to stagger back-and-forth before she felt Randy Wilcox's powerful arm wrap around her waist, to squeeze her and steady her as the boat swung around near the Golden Gate Bridge to head for the island.

     Randy blew softly on the back of her neck.  "I reserved cell number seven," he whispered.

     Liz glanced back at him.  "Is that where you're going to interview the four candidates?" she quipped.  She had set up four candidates for Randy to interview where they were spending the weekend, at the Sheraton, in San Francisco, on Monday.  Randy had complained that he wanted an extra day to be with her, that he preferred his new Western Regional Sales Manager fly up from LA to interview them first, then present him with the two best candidates for him to choose between.

     She and Randy had walked from the Sheraton to the Fisherman’s Wharf to leave for the Alcatraz tour.  She had tried to get him to tell her the secret he had mentioned on the phone as they walked but he would not.  They were both saying, “I love you,” with conviction, but each time she had attempted to broach the subject of his wife of twenty years, Rita, and his daughter, Kathryn, nineteen, a college student, and his sixteen year-old son, Jim, Randy had abruptly dismissed the subject by saying, “We’ll work out the details in time.”  .

     They disembarked from the boat and followed the tour group up the steep hill.  Randy pulled Liz back and they lagged behind the group when they went inside the main building with cell blocks lining the walls.  As they slipped into a prison cell, Randy said, “I have something for you."

     Liz asked herself if this was it: the proposal.  A ring!  She instantly knew it wasn't when he handed her a plain white envelope with instructions to open it.

     Liz ripped the envelope open and forced a smile to hide her disappointment.  "What is it?" she asked as she studied the airline ticket.  "It says 'Los Angeles to New York and New York to Rome.’  Rome!"  She glanced quickly at Randy, and then continued reading.  The ticket had her name on it. 

     "I don't understand," she said.

     Randy pushed her up against the cell wall. "We're going to Rome for a week," he said.  "Together!"

     Liz protested, "But, Randy, I don’t understand!"

     Randy explained that there was an international trade show in Rome in two weeks and that he had a free seat from his frequent flyer program.  He winked.  "I'm only taking you because I need an Italian interpreter!"

     "You rascal!" she shouted.  Then, she got excited about going to Rome as they walked quickly back to catch up with the tour group.  "But, I have to work, and there's Timmy—“

     "No more objections!" he ordered.  "Otherwise, I'll be forced to hire the best-looking Italian gal I can find when I get to Rome alone!  I hear some of those Italian gals look pretty good.”

     "You better not!" she quipped.  She started thinking of how to alibi for work and how to handle Timmy.  “Rome!” she squealed.  She threw her arms around him and hugged and kissed him.

     “Yeah,” he said.  “You finally got excited.  I started to close the cell door and leave for Rome without you.”

                                     #

     As they walked along the sidewalk in Rome, with the Forum on their right, they made a single turn and the Coliseum exploded into view, a historic panorama surrounding them, engulfing them, obliterating all other views.  Liz and Randy instinctively stopped to stare at the crusty circular structure in an attempt to take it all in on one viewing, which was impossible.

     Liz turned to study Randy a moment, found him an interesting contrast in jeans and a white golf shirt, which gave him the image of a weight lifter, not the slick Ivy-League business image of a professional salesman.  She wondered what he thought of her in her faded jeans, a sloppy lavender T-shirt and beat-up white sneakers, with her long hair pulled up and pinned down, hidden under a black beret.  She had worn her large California sun glasses which she usually took to the beach since it was a bright, sunny day.  She had worried at first, when she realized the limited clothing selection she had brought in the two carry-on bags gave her few choices.  She was concerned that Randy might not like her sloppy outfit until he put his hand in the back pocket of her jeans, rubbed around, and said, "That fabulous body of yours just kind of moves around inside those loose clothes, huh?"

     She removed his hand, saying, “That’s the Coliseum, Buster.   Study it, not me.” 

     He glanced at the back of her jeans and said, “There are other interesting views to be observed.”  Finally, he looked up the street and exclaimed, “Wowwwwww!  Now I know why you made me walk on the sidewalk.  It just bursts out at you from nowhere and kind of captures you all at once, huh?"

     Liz nodded.  "It's the most recognizable structure on earth," she declared.  Her high school tour group had a savvy old tour guide who had made them walk the same steps she and Randy were walking.  She had never forgotten the majestic splendor of that moment when she first saw the Coliseum.

     As they continued walking toward the front entrance, he said, “You know, the French might disagree with you and say the Eiffel Tower is the most recognizable structure—“

     "The Eiffel Tower!" she shot back indignantly.  "You must be kidding!  This place was the history of Rome.  Of the world!  They fed Christians to the lions here in the first century A.D, two thousand years ago!  The Eiffel Tower!  Ha!  A mechanical toy the French built in the late eighteen-eighties!  A mere hundred years ago.  Anyway, what do the French know?"

     He grabbed her hand and pulled her along across the street to the front entrance of the Coliseum.  "Yeah," he mimicked, "what do the French know!  Hey!  My dad was part French.  I'm part French!"

     "French?  I knew there was something wrong with you!"

     Randy's arm squeezed her waist as he hustled her along the front of the Coliseum.  They found a guide, an elderly man who took them up the stairs to the second floor, where they stood in awe, looking down into the bowels of the great structure where crusty, orange stone columns separated aisles.  After they completed the tour and the tour guide left, they sat and talked a while.

     "This is really a romantic place," Randy said.  "You could get overwhelmed with history here, get all wrapped up in emotions and carried away."

     Liz agreed.  "Then, let's talk about us in this romantic setting," she urged.

     He smiled.  "Soon."  He leaned over to kiss her lips lightly.  “We’ll talk about us soon.” 

                                     #

     Tuesday morning Randy attended the obligatory opening of the trade show while Liz went shopping at some of the fashionable boutiques near her hotel, the Excelsior, on Via Veneto.  She had noted the above-the-knee lengths of skirts Italian gals were wearing and bought two, one navy blue, the other a forest green.  She bought some blouses at two small boutiques tucked into an upstairs loft, then found herself at the walls near Villa Borghese.  She proceeded back down the opposite side of Via Veneto to a small outdoor café where she ordered cannelloni, thought about their trip to Naples the next two days and decided if Randy didn't propose by Thursday night, she would force his hand.  There were so many issues they needed to discuss and resolve, where to live, and their kids, that she did not want to wait until their last day, Saturday.

     Pedestrian traffic was heavy on the sidewalk near her table.  The sky was a pastel blue, temperature in the mid-eighties.  Liz pulled out her tour guides and started reading them while she ate.  She and Randy would take in St. Peters and the Vatican in the early afternoon, which would leave them several days to cover the other main tourist sites.  There were so many interesting, historic things she wanted to see in Rome she decided to list them out and rank them: the Spanish Steps, Castel Sant'Angelo, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, Catacombs, and, on the way to Naples, the Appian Way.  She hadn’t seen much on her high school trip and wanted to see everything on this trip.  She could feel the tension building for her first visit to Naples since she had left as a teenager.  She would confront her violent past.

                                     #

     Liz directed as Randy drove the car around the narrow streets of Naples she had roamed as a teenager, behind Mergellina, the little fishing boat harbor, where she had lived.  She was choked with emotion as he drove up into the hills on the winding Via Posillipo, once Naples’ grand avenue, lined with stately mansions where Balla had worked briefly as a maid and several times as a prostitute when she first came to Naples.

     "That one!" Liz said, pointing to a large estate on the left, where a curving stone-walled road led down to an old mansion that hung out over the cliffs.  Randy wheeled to the left and drove down the road slowly as the Bay of Naples unfolded before them, the island of Capri jutting up out of the blue water off to the right, Mount Vesuvius soaring through the clouds off to the left.

     "Magnificent!" Randy whispered, as if someone might hear him.  "What a fantastic view."

     "It's famous," Liz told him.  Balla had learned that a secret meeting had been held there between Churchill and Tito in nineteen forty-five and the house had later become a historic monument.  "What I remember is that if you continue driving on Posillipo all the way out to Pozzouli, eight or ten miles, you will find the birthplace of Sophia Loren.” Liz giggled. "She grew up in Naples, you know." 

     Randy winked.  “Now that is a landmark,” he said. “The home of your look-alike.  So that’s Pozzouli’s claim to fame?”

     "Well, there was one other small event there: some guy named 'St. Paul' landed at the port in Pozzouli, which they called ‘Puteoli,’ on his way from Jerusalem to Rome."

     "St. Paul?  You mean, like 'Jesus,’ the Bible?  That St. Paul?"  He glanced over at her.  "Wow!  That's really heavy stuff!  Is that in the tour book you're reading?"

     "Yes," she agreed.  "It is.  We can drive out there if you like."

     Randy said he felt a little uncomfortable in the company of biblical figures.  "I mean, it's all right to read about them in the Bible when you’re in New York or L.A., but when you come in direct contact with the real things over here it gets a little spooky."

     Liz thought about what he said.  She had been listening to him carefully the last several days, attempting to understand him.  Religion appeared to frighten him.  He was a very complex man. 

     Randy drove back into the Naples’ city center, passed the sprawling castle Nuovo, a sentinel with a serrated roof and towers that had stood watch over sailors coming off ships on the Tyrrhenian Sea and entering Naples through Fleet Landing for over six centuries.  Liz and the Vespas had often hidden in the castle when being pursued by the polizia or Navy Shore Patrols. 

     Liz strained, searching, as they drove slowly the next half mile.    She could not find the exact spot where she and the urchins used to slip through the fence into Fleet Landing.  But, there was an abutting street she remembered and at the spot across the street where she had sneaked into Fleet Landing, she found a brick wall.  "They built a big wall!" she moaned.

     Randy laughed.  "Were you actually thinking about slipping into the harbor like you did in the old days?"  he asked.

     Liz was somber.  "No!  But . . . everything's changed!"  She fought back tears welling up in her eyes.  When she could hold back the tears no longer, she started crying. 

     Randy pulled the car over and stopped to ask what was wrong.

     “I killed a man,” Liz sobbed.  “Right here on the corner.  I shot a Mafioso with my Beretta that night the Vespas attacked the truck.  I killed a man . . . all these years it has haunted me.  I never even told my priest for fear the Mafia would come to take their revenge. “

     “My God!” Randy moaned.  “Do you know his name?”

     Liz nodded.  “Bonaro Bianchi.  They called him ‘Bony.’”

     Randy cut the engine.  They sat and talked for a while as Liz regained her composure.  She studied the neighborhood, recognized a bar the Vespas had used often.  For some strange reason she was drawn to the bar, compelled to go and see the inside.  Randy followed her into the bar.

     Liz found a bartender, called out, “Giovanni?  Is it you?”

     “Si,” the bartender called back.  “Who are you?”

     Liz hesitated before asking, “Do you remember the urchins, the Vespas?”  When Giovanni nodded, Liz said, “I was with Carlos.”

     “Ah-h-h!” Giovanni smiled.  “Carlos became a Camorra leader who was later killed.”
     Liz was deeply saddened to learn that Carlos had been killed.  “Did you know Bonaro Bianchi?” she asked.  She held her breath.

     “Si!  Si.  ‘Bony.’  A Mafioso.  He became a leader, was shot to death four or five years ago.”

     Liz was confused.  She quizzed the bartender, finally saying, “So I didn’t kill him after all!”  Relief swept through her simmering brain like cooling water.

     The bartender asked her who she was.

     “Zingara,” Liz said proudly.

     The bartender nodded respectfully.  “The crazy Americano kid.  Si.  Si.  I remember your name.  You shot Bony.  He didn’t die but the Mafia wanted you dead.”

                                                                  #

     Thursday evening Liz and Randy returned from their trip to the Blue Grotto, on the opposite side of the island of Capri, to their hotel in the Marina.  They dressed and went out for dinner.  Liz wore her new short navy blue skirt and new silky pale blue blouse she had bought in Rome.  She let her hair hang straight down her back.  She told herself this had to be the night Randy proposed and she wanted to look her best. 

     They found a restaurant on the second floor that faced the ocean, ordered drinks and danced several times before their food arrived.  She had ordered the special of the day, which was a seafood platter with a variety of fish indigenous to Capri, cuttlefish, lamprey, marmot, in addition to shrimp.

     Randy sampled the fish, nodded approval, and then said, "I've got a great proposition for you.  Great"

     Liz was disturbed.  "Proposition or proposal?" she countered.

     He grinned.  "You damned headhunters!  You always go for the jugular!  Anyway, for now, it has to be a proposition."

     Liz stopped eating.  "Randy," she began, "we’ve been living a proposition since Las Vegas.  Make an honest woman out of me.  I’m looking for more out of life than a—“

     "A proposition?" 

     Liz looked directly at Randy.  "How many times do I have to say, 'I love you,' to equal one proposal?"

     He reached across the table to hold her hand.  "You're all I think about," he said softly.  "I do want us to be together.  It's just that there are problems right now.  The timing is not good for me."

     Liz didn't like what she was hearing.  She withdrew her hand.  "What's your proposition?" she asked icily.

     "I've got an apartment in New York—“

     "No!" she blurted.  "An apartment is a proposition, not a proposal."

     "Only for a few months.  I'm changing jobs in six weeks.  I can't afford to rock the boat right now.  The other company has met my wife.  I can't just walk in and say I got divorced.  As a headhunter, you know what I'm saying."

     "Yes, I do.  But Randy, I have to deal with a husband I’m divorcing, and custody of my son, and you’ve got family problems to address also.  A proposition is not workable for me."  A tear rolled out of the corner of her eye as she turned away to look out at the lights around the Marina.  She told herself she should have recognized there were major problems, that he had not brought up the subject all week and she had allowed him to get away with it because she had been so enamored with Rome and Naples and Capri. She knew that a good headhunter would have assumed nothing, would have identified the problem and confronted it immediately.  She knew she had committed a cardinal communication sin:  she had assumed Randy would propose, violating the headhunter's credo, which had been preached to her daily in her training:  "Assume nothing!  Ask, even if you're certain you already know the answer!"

     "Give me six weeks," he pleaded.  "Liz, I love you . . . “

     “And in six weeks, you’ll be asking for another six weeks.”

     The three strolling troubadours were at their table, asking if they had a special request.

     Liz replied, “’Arrivederci Roma.’”  She told them she would sing with them.

     Liz stood and sang with the three men.  When she finished singing the song, tears were streaming down her cheeks.  She snatched her purse off the table and walked toward the exit alone without looking back.

                                   #