Like most mornings since she arrived, the sound of rushing water woke Bella. Was it raining heavily? Was her apartment flooded? Were the gutters pouring out their overload? Were the rubbish collectors calmly but aggressively hosing down the pavement outside her door? Her morning stroll could mean trudging through flooded streets in pouring rain. It often meant carrying heavy packages over bridge upon bridge. Frequently it resulted in meeting someone for whom she wanted to be dressed impeccably.

Bella never knew for sure what the rushing water was that she often heard outside her door on the Venice streets until she saw it with her very eyes. Even then what she saw was questionable given the usually foggy, shadowy Venetian light. This morning she had simply heard the garbage collectors cleaning pavement outside her door and fortunately, no flooding.

Every day is garbage day in this remarkable town. Every evening Venetians carefully place recycled grocery bags full of trash outside, on the handles of their doors to avoid tampering by rats, cats or floods. Bella smiled when she recalled the notice the owner of the apartment she rented had posted on her kitchen wall:

GARBAGE- Due to the quite unusual disposition of Venice, disposing of garbage is more difficult than in normal city centers. So please put your garbage bags on the bridge facing the Palazzo (palace) 6 to 8 am; it will be cleaned up in the morning between 6 and 8. JUST FASTENED BAGS! Thank you

The mostly male corps of collectors who spread out across the city accomplished the "unusual disposition" of garbage by removing plastic bags from door handles or bridges, building mounds of trash in barges waiting in nearby canals and hosing cigarette butts and other debris off the pavement. Bella spent the better part of many mornings observing the impressive details of this production.

This morning was different. The usual muted laughter and vulgar Venetian jokes of the street cleaners, their voices low outside Bella's apartment door, were suddenly interrupted by the squeal of an unsuspecting passerby who had turned a corner directly into the street-cleaners' hoses. The poor fellow's consequential response to getting soaked by spraying was equally Venetian and thus vulgar.

"Cazzo de merda," swore the accidental victim.

Bella knew that such was the possible fate that faced on her morning walk for an espresso in Venice. She chuckled at hearing this early comedy, imagining one handsome venetian dressed in work overalls holding a hose pointed at an extremely fashionably dressed drenched man. She tried to shake off thoughts of two other handsome men whose verbal tussling she had witnessed-her usually unflappable rich, thief ex- boyfriend against a wealthy law enforcement stranger-while she slipped on her rain boots, just in case.

Bella stepped lightly as she negotiated the slippery bridge steps on her way to get her morning coffee, which she never drank at home alone and usually bought from a cafe where handsome venetian men worked. There were many such establishments.

Passing Campo San Maurizio, the bar she slipped into this morning was Cafe di Redentore, one of her favorites, where she ordered her usual macchiatone, large espresso with a smidgeon of steamed milk dolloped on top it. Decorated in typical venetian cafe style, with wooden half-walls, ceramic brown checkered floor tiles, green marble counter tops and brick archways, the cafe-bar was welcoming and cozy, meaning tiny.

"Come zea, tutto ben," her young handsome server asked her in venetian dialect how she was doing. He knew Bella loved to speak veneziano and they all laughed furiously when she did.

"Beh, beh, anca ti?" she answered "fine" and asked how he was, which resulted in the usual uproarious laughter at a beautiful blond American woman trying to speak the local dialect.

"Si, si, anca mi," he answered. He was fine, too.

An even more handsome man entered the cafe and nodded to her, "ciao vech-ya," he greeted her. It literally meant "hello old lady" yet was a term of endearment in the humorous, always casual and often vulgar venetian dialect.

"Ciao vech-yo," she replied, perfectly pronounced and thus initiating further laughter. How can I go back to America? She wondered this frequently for she felt so at home in this little cafe and other local favorites, where she knew everyone after only one month.

Bella could not shake the strange feelings that yesterday's encounter between Edward and Christian had stirred in her. The look of rage in Edward's face as he capitulated to a richer, younger man in front of her, was extremely disarming. His surrender to Christian-and in front of her- was so perplexing that she almost tripped on steps at two bridges and toppled into the canals.

Not again, no more falling in canals, she told herself trying to concentrate on her steps and not the wrath of Edward that she knew would be forthcoming.

Bella had fallen in before, not only with Edward, but in a venetian canal. She had casually written her sister Anna about her slip, not with Edward, but on the algae off the steps of the traghetto dock. The only gondolas still in regular use by Venetians are the traghetti, which ferry foot passenger across certain points without bridges along the Grand Canal. The word means "from" (tra) "the ghetto" and was named as such because the originals transported jews from the ghetto where they were housed together.

This traghetto ride was Bella's daily journey to school, so the low water and exposed algae on the dock steps leading into the gondola that carries passengers regularly across the Grand Canal didn't concern her. Yet, one day, the instant her foot hit the algae, she slipped like wobbly skate on ice and was unable to maintain her balance. She fell into the drink-expensive Italian boots, cell phone and all-straight out of the holding hand of the beautiful young gondolier trying to help her onto the boat.

"Venetians near me rallied so fast to get me out," she had written her sister. "I barely had my shoulders under when they lifted me as easily as they would a floating piece of plastic." Her Venetian recue squad, she told Anna, also assured her that all self-respecting residents fell into a canal at some point in their lives. The young gondolier, who felt somewhat responsible for not holding her hand more securely when she was entering the boat, made up for it by embracing her tightly, both arms wrapped around the large down coat with which he covered her.

I can't wait to see you in Venice again, thought Bella's sister upon reading this and also while meditating that evening, as if she were talking directly to Bella. Anna had already decided to go to Venice and help Bella "straighten things out." She felt her sister Bella's presence deep in her heart as she had during the stillness of her morning meditation. Thousands of miles from her across the pond, as the Atlantic ocean was referred to by jet-setters like Bella, her older sister Anna played keeper to her adventurous younger sister. Before Bella left for Venice, Anna asked her to take a yoga mat and buddhist text, hoping these items might keep Bella sane, grounded. Bella grumbled, said she had too much other stuff to carry and left it in the car at the airport.

Don't fall in again, dear one, Anna quietly prayed, as she recalled sister's spill into a murky canal. Quite concerned about Bella's addiction to the beguiling, fascinating city of Venice, she also feared for her addiction to Edward, the man Bella almost mistakenly married. She added, until I get there, as she tried sending Bella her thoughts telepathically, knowing not whether those thoughts fell int her sister's distant mind.