“Specifically? I don’t know—a lot of things. The Sammy’s Halal cart on West Fourth, the Cliffs climbing gym, Strand bookstore, babka, soup dumplings, arepas. Maybe mostly food, now that you ask.”
“The climbing gym. Well, that explains that little move you did swinging off the scaffolding the first day we met you. I know what you mean about the food, though. I don’t know how I am going to live without bagels, to be honest.”
“No bagels in Zurich, I am assuming.”
“Nah. I think it’s all cheese.”
“Only cheese, huh?” He laughed.
“Seems that way. Aside from food, though, do you miss thefeelingof New York? I am worried about that—missing the energy. You know what I mean? I haven’t actually said that to anyone before.”
“The energy is the one thing I do not miss. Sometimes it was too much, I think. Maybe it wasn’t right for me,” he said, scanning the coast to their right.
“But you lived there for so long. How could you live somewhere that long and feel like it was too much?”
“Because I was comfortable for a long time. Then I just wasn’t.” He knew he could go deeper, but it felt like it was too much to share with someone so temporary. Then again, maybe it would be easier to share with someone he knew would be gone soon.
“I think we all go through cycles in the city, you know?” she said. “One week, you get a new amazing pho place on your block and you catch a free concert, and you think there is no greater place on earth. The next week, your favorite bodega closes, your packages get stolen, and you feel like the city is falling apart. Then you go, ‘This place is ruined. I’ve got to get out of here.’”
“That’s true,” he said, then caught a glimpse of what he’d been looking for over to the right. It was the last remaining support of the bridge built in the seventeenth century that had fallen into the sea during the big storm in 2021. “Nuova costruzione,” he muttered.
“Sorry?” Lora turned her head.
“Over there, see?” He placed the paddle across his lap and pointed at an ancient brick pillar. The top edge was jagged, rising out of the water where a small river flowed into the sea. From this angle, they could clearly see the ends of the bridge on either side, each left to jut out unconnected into the air.
“Is that the bridge? That’s the one that’s four hundred years old?”
“So old the Spanish built it.”
“That’s crazy,” she said. “We don’t have a lot of stuff that old in the US, as you know. How long has it been out?”
“Four years. We can get to this side of town by going all the way around the river to the more modern bridge, but it takes an extra twenty minutes. That doesn’t sound like much, but when you consider that most of the important tourist areas are on the other side of this, any obstacle is going to be a problem.”
“So, you need to fix the bridge to make it easier for tourists to get to the fun stuff.”
“Exactly. If we keep going this way, you’ll see what I mean. The most beautiful beach in this whole area is just around the other side of these rocks.” He pointed to a small collection of boulders. He picked up his paddle and began to cut through the water again, only taking a few strokes to begin to see the empty beach emerge. Tucked into another cove, it had a wide swath of sand and a gentle slope into the sea that looked like liquid turquoise. “I wanted you to see this. Should we pull in and have a look?”
“Yes, definitely!”
They paddled in, jumping out of the boat in the shallow water, and pulled the kayak up onto the sand. The sun had dropped even lower in the sky, beginning to put on its golden-hour magic show, and Andrea watched as delight cast a glow over Lora’s face as she took it all in. This was obviously not the first time she’d seen a beach before, but it was probably the first time she’d seen a beach like this.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“I think it’s incomprehensible that this whole part of the town is being kept a secret for a lack of funding. It makes me angry. It’s so beautiful that the word ‘beautiful’ doesn’t make sense,” she said, turning to him. “I can see why youwere upset today. I’m sorry for adding my stuff on top of it all.”
“It’s OK. You couldn’t have known what I was dealing with. Also, it shouldn’t matter. I should be able to separate those disappointments from my interactions with other people.”
“That’s got to be tough. It seems like you’re only one person running the whole show over there. You don’t have anyone besides Franca?”
“There are other people that I can call on for specific tasks, but she’s the one constant,” he said. “Want to sit for a minute?” She nodded and they settled themselves in the sand.
“And you’ve never done anything like this before, right?”
“No. I was an asset manager with only select clients and a handful of direct staff members before. There was a lot more stress, though. I was responsible for making sure that people continue to grow their fortunes long term, which sounds easy when millions are pouring in. It’s actually quite hard to stop people from spending all of their money, as it turns out.”
“Is that why you left? The stress?”
“Sort of.”
