Lost in the Spanish Quarter. Heddi Goodrich

here in my own car. Treated you like a real lady.”

      We’d made our way back to the Capodimonte Museum, the city’s second royal palace. It was painted in a fickle red, which, between sunrise and sunset when the park gates were open, would sometimes look the color of a sun-faded beach umbrella, or fresh blood, or old spilled wine. The huge lawn before it was spectacularly green.

      I unbuckled my sandals and stepped onto that color-saturated carpet. It was something I hadn’t done in years. I lay on my back, feeling Pietro sink into the grass beside me. The grass was so cool that I was reminded of the snow angels I used to make when I was little, and I wondered if there was such a thing as grass angels. The clear sky was an infinity rolling over us.

      There came a low rumbling. “Thunder?” I joked.

      “I swear it’s not my stomach.”

      Within seconds, the rumbling grew into a sound so unnatural that it was like the very air was being sucked back up into the sky. Then from behind the palm trees came an enormous black plane. Flying at shockingly low altitude, it passed over us as if in slow motion; I could see its wheels locked into place, the silvery scratches on its black underbelly. Instinctively I pressed myself deeper into the lawn so as not to be grazed.

      “Holy crap!” cried Pietro. “What the hell was that?”

      Excitedly we went through a few hypotheses, finally agreeing it had to be a military plane.

      “I’ve never been on a plane before,” Pietro said.

      “Not even once?”

      “No.”

      I ran my palm over the little swords of grass. “Do you think there’ll be another one?”

      “I hope so. Let’s wait a little.”

      We were gripped with suspense. It was like waiting for the next set of fireworks on the Fourth of July; it was the desire to play with fire. Our patience was rewarded when shortly afterward another airplane appeared. The air was ripped apart, the earth shook. I thought our luck had run out and this time there might very well be a collision, maybe with the roof of the museum itself, and I let out a silent scream. And then it was over.