“You need a volunteer.”

“And . . . ?”

“I told Daisy that I would do it.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it quickly with a snap. By the third time he did it, a small sound came out, but nothing more.

“They’re just vases, Marcello.”

“They are not just vases, Avery. You know it is not.”

“It is what we decide it is. Nobody has to define it. Vases, just vases.”

“What if they take you a week, a month?”

“Then they take a week or a month.”

“And there is no one waiting for you at home?” he asked, his voice sounding casual, but his eyes told me otherwise.

“That’s complicated.”

And it was. It certainly wasn’t a lie.

A lie by omission is still a lie, Daniel would say. Ironic. I wondered how many omissions he omitted telling me about.

“I see.” His eyes narrowed. “Home is still Boston, yes?”

Huh. He was on a fact-finding mission. I nodded. “Yes. And Rome is home for you now? How far are we from where your family grew up? I know you grew up fairly close to here.”

I could fact find, too.

“You remembered,” he replied, allowing a small smile to escape before putting his business face back on.

Of course I’d remembered. I remembered everything.

And just like that I was thrown back to Barcelona, to him, to the lazy days and frenzied nights. To the carefree and the unhurried, when not one thing was tedious or monotonous.

For years I’d kept myself from thinking about him, hating myself for what I did. For what I didn’t say. Mainly for how I let things unravel. Because if I had thought about or contacted him after months or years of silence, there’d be no way I could get through my monotonous, routine life. And now here he was, and the floodgates were open, and I was experiencing everything again like it was the first time.

These were dangerous waters.

“Your hair, it is different, no?” he said, changing the subject once again.

“Not really. It’s the same curly mess it always was,” I said, smoothing it back.

“Why do you tuck it away?”

“My hair plus this humidity? Nightmare.”

“Hmm,” he replied, but didn’t elaborate. “So, you are still in Boston, where someone may or may not wait for you—”

“Yes.”

“—and you are here in Rome. For a while. We don’t know how long.” He studied me for a moment. “And the museum is okay with this?”

“Museum?”

“Or gallery—I assume you’re working for one or the other. Or perhaps you are teaching? I always thought you would make an excellent teacher.”

Pay dirt. He’d unraveled me in less than five minutes. Suddenly I didn’t want to play this game anymore.

“I’m not teaching. Or working, for that matter.”

“So you are . . .”

“So I am. There’s not much to it,” I said, frustrated that I had nothing to show for my life so far. It was the same feeling I got when Daisy asked about sketching.

“And now you are in Rome,” he said, glancing up at me, waiting. “And my newest volunteer.”

“Am I?” I tried to keep the giddiness out of my voice, the smile off my face, and the twinkle out of my eye, but it just wasn’t possible. “You’re okay with it?”

Nodding once, he stood and motioned for the check. “Like you said, they’re just vases.”

* * *

WALKING ME BACK TO DAISY’S, he weaved us in and out of side streets that we hadn’t taken the first time. This path had far less tourist signage to help me along the way. Usually, every corner building had a street sign on it and a stack of signs shaped like arrows pointing every which way to send you toward the landmarks.

This was more of a tour through pocket-sized neighborhoods that seemed to exist on the outskirts of the larger section of Trastevere.

Throughout the entire walk, it was agonizingly quiet. Not a cold quiet like it was on the way to the coffee shop, but a thoughtful quiet. His hands were tucked into his khaki shorts and his long legs ate up the sidewalk with purpose.

“Do you know where you’re going?” I asked, unable to take the silence anymore.

He harrumphed. “Of course. It is only your second day, yes? I take you a different way so you see more.”

“Oh,” I whispered, taken aback by the thoughtfulness of it. “Thank you.”

We had just turned a corner that I recognized as near the Metro stop I arrived at my first day. Had I been paying attention that day, I would have seen the enormous Poggi art store across the street. I stopped, but Marcello carried on not realizing that I wasn’t behind him. The iron gates were down but the interior lights were lit enough that I could see that the store looked well stocked.

“What it is?” Marcello asked, coming to stand beside me.

Our shoulders brushed lightly, but it was enough that we both noticed and stepped away from the other.

“It’s nothing. I was just going to snap a picture so I remembered where this was.” If I was correct, this was just about two blocks away from Daisy’s. And this was definitely a place I wanted to come back to.

He crossed the street and looked in the glass door before bending down to read the sign.

“Chiuso il lunedi eh, they are closed Mondays,” he explained. “Tomorrow they open at nine.” He handed me a business card he’d picked up from a holder on the door.

I smiled in thanks and tucked it into my purse.