When we finally get into the room, we take a moment to laugh at the size of the bed, quite possibly smaller than the one in Nonna’s house.
We don’t seem to care.
With the streetlight shining through the window, the world stands still.
Zack undresses me with a soft and purposeful motion.
I discard his clothes into a pile on the floor.
We waste no time with foreplay.
We make love under the moonlight.
We make love under the Sorrento sky.
We make love like two people who had to travel to the other side of the world in order to find each other again.
16
Zack
I’m surprised to admit that I’m sad we’re going home.
When we woke in Sorrento, Jolene surprised me with a moped rental being delivered outside our hotel. It was no motorcycle, but it got us up and down the Amalfi Coast, stopping in all the towns she loves.
She wasn’t lying when she said they were beautiful. I’m not one to drool over a view, but seeing Jolene standing on a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean with the pinkish hue of the town of Positano behind her and a lemon tree nearby is an image I’ll have ingrained in my brain for the rest of my life.
The trip has flown by. I’d never escaped like that before—flying off to a foreign country with a duffel on my shoulder and no fucking clue what my next hour would look like. My life has been full of responsibilities and demands since I turned eighteen. I’m lucky if I’m able to slip away to a wedding or bachelor party. And you know what?
I wouldn’t change it for anything.
Jolene and I stop by Nonna’s house before heading for the airport. As we leave, she gives me a tender hug and tells me to come back soon. I don’t have the heart to tell her that I don’t know when and if I’ll ever be able to make the trip again.
“Chi non va non vede, chi non vede non sa, e chi non sa se lo prende sempre in culo,” she said.
Jolene told me it translates to: If you don’t go, you won’t see. If you don’t see, you won’t know. If you don’t know, you’ll take it in the ass every time.
I’m debating on whether Jo’s twisting my arm on that one.
If I didn’t have Luke to get home to, there’s a small part of me that wants to continue to go and see and know all that this world has to offer. But I have a son, and this is the longest time I’ve ever been away from him.
Just one thought of my son, and that’s all I need to remember why I call home, home. Getting to raise him and see all his accomplishments makes every responsibility that comes with being a dad worth it.
We still have one more day until he’s back from his own trip, so Jolene booked a layover for me in New York before I fly back to San Francisco.
As we exit the plane at JFK and make our way through the airport, it’s obvious how familiar Jolene is with this place.
She weaves her way with ease through the crowds and winds through the halls of the airport toward customs and baggage claim without having to look at a sign. Since we’re at her home airport, she’s able to get me to the front of the line to get my passport scanned, and we’re out the door and in the taxi line in no time.
“To 109th and Lefferts, please,” she tells the driver as we get into the cab.
I glance around the area, taking in the fact that I’m actually in New York City. Last week, I was on a plane for the first time in years, heading to Vegas and thinking that was such a big deal. Now, I feel like I’ve been all over the world. Well, I guess I actually have.
I chuckle under my breath to myself at the thought.
“What’s that?” Jolene nudges my shoulder.
“Just amazed that I’m in New York. Will we drive past the Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty?”
She lets out a loud laugh, and I realize how much I must sound like a tourist. I didn’t even act this way in Italy. I guess because I didn’t know what I wanted to see since I’d never even dreamed of visiting there.
Now that I’m here, in the same place I’ve seen the ball drop every New Year or the location where the towers fell on September 11—
The thought stops me.
I grab her hand. “Can we go see the 9/11 Memorial?”
She grins, knowing how much it would mean to me. My dad was once in the military. That’s what originally brought him and my mom to Dixon—because he was stationed at Travis Air Force Base. When September 11 happened, he taught me what it meant to fight for our country and be proud to be an American. I thought about joining the military to help with Jolene’s desires to see the world until my dad got sick.
“If that’s what you want to do, then yes. We don’t have a ton of time until your flight home tomorrow morning, but we’ll try to squeeze it in.”
We drive through the residential streets of row houses. “It doesn’t look like what I thought it would.”
“That’s because we’re in South Queens. Manhattan is about an hour by car or train. Traffic sucks.”
When we pull up to her place, she pays the driver, and we climb out. Her apartment is in a four-story building on the corner of a busy block. There’s a Laundromat and an insurance agency next door and narrow single-family homes across the street.
“I’m pretty sure my roommates are gone, but just in case someone comes home in the middle of the night, don’t be jostled by the noise,” she says as we walk up to the second floor.
She opens the door of her apartment, unlocking no fewer than three locks, and we enter into a place that’s lackluster, to say the least.
I know I shouldn’t judge, being that I live in an office above my bar, but something feels off here.
The walls are white with no pictures or any decorations. The couches look small, shallow, and uncomfortable while the table that sits in the corner is mismatched with chairs of different colors and sizes.
I’m not a snob, and I would never rate a person by what they don’t have, but something’s just not right. My office above my bar resembles more of a home than this. This is random furniture placed for mere necessity instead of actually inviting someone to sit, stay, and call it a home.
“How many people live here?” I ask as we walk past the small kitchen. Jolene thinks about it, and I halt. “Why is that a hard question?”
She shrugs. “It changes a lot. This is a crash pad. It’s set up through the airlines, and some people only stay a month or two. Jessica and Tanya have been here for a few years though. Their schedules are set up, so they are only here a few days a week. Their real homes are back where they grew up, so they come for a night here and there.”
“What about you? Is this your permanent home, or do you have another place?”
“This is it,” she states. “Four walls, a fridge, a stove, and a bathroom. Pretty much the definition of a crash pad. Oh, and we have a washer and dryer in the hall closet, which is practically unheard of in New York City apartments! It’s small, but it beats having to walk to a Laundromat—or worse, a basement in the building. That would be creepy as fuck.”
The way she describes her living arrangement is like this is the most normal thing in the world. I glance around, making sure I’m not jumping to conclusions.