“Did you say you were coming to Anagram with us tomorrow?” Dawn asked, as we separated to take the elevators to our respective rooms.
“Sure,” I said. “Thanks for the invitation, we’d love to.”
I didn’t want to go, and Matteo would be furious. This seemed to me a good compensation for what I’d done, or failed to do, with Dawn today.
I threw open the curtains of our corner room. Matteo was junior, so we faced the city port, where I watched cruise ships dock and embark while Spanish music videos played on the TV. At midnight, an English program about covered bridges in Iowa came on and I watched until Matteo stumbled through the door, drunk on Scotch.
“Oh my God,” he said, and threw himself face down on top of the coverlet.
I rubbed his back, his dress shirt slipping against my fingers.
“Every man is crazy, Allison. Did you know that?”
“Who?”
“Howie. Ganesh. Josh.”
“And women aren’t?”
“Yeah, but everybody expects you to be.”
Matteo turned over. His dark curls spread across the white coverlet like a Victorian mourning wreath. I smiled. He propped himself up and pulled me beneath him. I still pulsed from the Madonna’s infusion.
“It might be weird,” I said. “I’ve got some weird energy on me today.”
“Me too,” he said, undoing my pajama top.
He was heavy, dragged down by the scotch in his muscles. When he turned me over, the thrusts were furious and deep, but pleasurable. He was taking out the day on me, but I liked that Matteo could get angry, rather than wallowing in self-pity. The previous summer, I’d been cornered by Howie on a company-sponsored booze cruise outside Villefranche-sur-Mer. He stuck out his forearms and asked me to feel them.
“There’s no hair on them anymore,” he’d said. “I went to the hospital last week. I think I’m dying.”
I’d rubbed Howie’s smooth arms with my fingertips, murmured “I’m very, very sorry,” and gotten us two shots of Fireball from the bar.
When we woke in the morning, I told Matteo about Anagram.
“Shit,” he said. “Why did you say yes?”