Bel Tempo

"Grandma, I have to say that with a few minor adjustments, this afternoon is so perfect, I'd be happy for it to go on forever," Rory said. "But I'm pretty sure eternal bliss doesn't include that kid over there with the whistle."

"Or that dreadful rash on your leg," Emily added. "Train travel is so terribly unhygienic." She sipped her water. "I am glad you're enjoying yourself, and I agree, this is very nice."

The two were seated at one of the outdoor tables of the cafes in Piazza della Rotunda. Emily had ordered them sandwiches and bottled water, surprising Rory with a smattering of fine-sounding Italian when she did. The piazza was crowded with tourists and the odd street performer and men selling small toys. It was hot, but the table where Rory and her grandmother sat seemed in the direct path of the only cool breeze in Rome. She attributed to Emily's stellar planning skills. Just that morning they had been settling themselves in the small apartment on the Aventine hill that she rented for the next four weeks and now they were here, outside the Pantheon, eating panini and lounging about with their sunglasses on like regular Romans.

"Grandma, I think you should find someone in the States to make panini like this and then send him or her to live with me at Yale," Rory said. "This is so good. If you had told me that a sandwich that only had tomato and mozzarella and what is this, spinach?"

"Basil, dear," Emily smiled.

"Basil, then, without meat, could be this good, I would have pointed and laughed. But this is so good." She put her food down and hugged herself. "This is just wonderful. Promise me it's going to rain while we're here, Grandma, because I want to see the Pantheon when it's raining."

"I imagine that the Pantheon is much the same when it's raining as when it's not," Emily said.

"But with the hole in the top? It's got to be so cool to stand in a building where it's raining inside and it's supposed to," she said. "It didn't rain when Mom and I were here."

"And have you given any thought to speaking to your mother in the near future?" Emily asked, taking another sip of water. "Your calls have been conveniently timed to miss her."

Rory sighed. "I'm still sorting some things out, and I don't know—I think it's easier this way. I miss her, I do, but I'm doing okay without her," she said. "And I'm sure she's doing just fine without me."

Emily finished her water, uncrossed her legs, and reached for her purse. "Shall we go, then?" she asked.

Rory nodded. "I read about this gelateria that's just behind the piazza that's supposed to be amazing. Do you like gelato?"

"I can't say I've ever had gelato," Emily replied.

"It's better than ice cream," she said. "Mom and I practically lived off it last year when we were here. Can you believe that there's a McDonald's here? Why would you come all the way to Rome and to the Pantheon to eat at a McDonald's?"

Emily put her arm around Rory as they walked. "Some people like only what is familiar and comfortable," she said. "Although why McDonald's is either of those things to anyone is beyond me. I do not understand the allure of fast food."

The gelateria was a circus of colors and there were too many flavors to choose from, so Rory had a bowl of five—two kinds of chocolate, coconut, cherry, and café latte—while Emily settled on a modest two—mango and peach. They continued walking the side streets beyond the Pantheon, Emily marveling at the texture and the taste of the gelato.

"This is just delightful!" she said.

Rory laughed. "I think that's the first real smile I've seen you have on your face in two weeks, Grandma."

"I do like Rome," Emily said. "It's such a strange, wonderful city. All the churches and the old fashioned buildings and the beautiful people. It's so wonderfully old world and still hip."

Rory giggled. "It's hip, is it?" she asked. "Well, I'm glad. So," she said, linking her arm through her grandmother's, "we're in Rome until Friday, and then we're going to Florence for a few days?"

"And then I thought it would be nice to come back to Rome before we go to Venice, and there are so many places we can take day trips in the meantime," Emily said. "The convenience of having an apartment allows us to do just whatever we please. We could go to Naples, Capri—anywhere we wish. Pull out the guidebook this evening and we'll make ourselves a little itinerary."

"I thought you'd have everything all planned out," Rory told her. "I was sure we were going to have a whole schedule of things to do, museums and shopping and everything."

Emily tossed her empty gelato cup into a waste bin as they passed and sighed. "I thought it might be restful to be without a schedule for a little while. It's been a very long time since I've woken up in the morning without a plan for the day or the one after. It can be quite exhausting to know what you're going to do at every moment of the day—overwhelming. This way we can live like ladies of leisure," she said. "I used to love watching movies when I was young with beautiful women in beautiful dresses, who didn't seem to have anything to do. Or they did glamorous things and wore glamorous clothes, like Grace Kelly in Rear Window."

"What did you want to do when you were younger, Grandma? When you grew up, what did you want to be?" It occurred to Rory she'd never asked her grandmother such a question before.

"Oh, I wanted to Queen Elizabeth. The first, mind you. I thought that would be very fine," Emily said.

"You wanted to be Queen of England?"

Emily held Rory's arm tightly in her own. "Oh, you know, some silly fantasy like that, I suppose. It really seemed like a perfect lifestyle—she ruled the country, she made decisions, she wrote poetry and speeches and she was educated and powerful. She had quite a life, if I remember my history rightly."

"But she never had any children or got married," Rory said. "Didn't you want a family?"

Emily conceded that she did. "But when you're ten or twelve or sixteen, you want to be all kinds of things. I also wanted to be the woman with the tail-feather skirt at the circus, or an actress like Bette Davis—"

"You did not want to be Bette Davis. Choose someone less scary," Rory said.

"Oh, Katharine Hepburn, then. Or a writer—we all have our little lists of 'if I could be anything, I'd be…' Mine was just like anyone else's," Emily said.

"I think the tail-feather skirt thing is pretty unique," Rory replied. She yawned.

"Let's get a taxi and go back to the hotel, have a nice little nap before dinner, shall we?" Emily said.

In the cab, Rory watched the city spinning past her, the wedding cake monument of the Victor Emmanuel, the Circus Maximus. She tilted her head to look at Emily, who sat primly beside her, her hands folded in her lap as she, too, looked out the window. She caught Rory's eye.

"The taxi drivers in this city must have a pool to see who can scare the most people to death yearly," she whispered.

Rory smiled. "You can be a writer, you know, Grandma."

"Excuse me?"

"It might be a little late to do the whole tail-feather, Bette Davis thing, but you could be a writer. All you need is paper and pen," she said.

Her grandmother reached out and put her hand against Rory's cheek. "It must be lovely to be young," she said.

Dear Mom,

The gelato's still the best here. If I could, I would bring some home for you.

I think Grandma needs this trip as much as I do. I think we all must forget who we are, sometimes, and need to remember. I keep thinking about traveling, and how when we went on our trip we had to see everything and be everywhere and do everything, and how this trip is just about being still in one place. I remember how I told Headmaster Charleston that I wanted to be sure to see things—I think I had a different idea what that means then. There's seeing things from the outside, from being separate, and then there's seeing things while trying to participate in them, to learn them the way they are and not the way you expect them to be when you're outside looking in.

Miss you.

Rory.