A HOT DAY IN JULY (Part 4)

I scooped tiles off the board and dumped them back into the bag. I poured some more wine. All was right with the world. I felt like a winner, that was for damn sure. Gloating, I magnanimously offered the bag to William to choose a letter to see who would go first.

He picked an "E."

I picked an "A." Can she do it twice? The crowd says yes!

William shook his head and smiled.

I like our life, don't you? I said.

He gazed at me, his face lit by candlelight and our twinkling overhead lights.

Yes, I really like our life. It’s good.

Yup. Me too.

And I slammed down one letter after another on the board and played a whole word. Again.

Wow, seventy points on the first go. I'm going to win this one too. Sorry to say, but this is not your Scrabble night.

It's looking rough, he agreed.

William took longer than usual to work out his next word. He frowned a little and reshuffled his letters and played a short word.

You okay? I asked while looking for a way to use the "Q."

Of course. Why?

Well, it's looking good for me again. I put the "Q" on a triple letter score to make QAT.

I dipped my hand into the bag and felt something jagged, like a broken tooth.

Hey...yuck...something's in here...like, not a letter—

William gave me puzzled look.

A HOT DAY IN JULY (Part 3)

William always beats me at Scrabble. I'm okay with that. I have a good time coming up with my little words while he shuffles his letters around like mad, searching for a humdinger of a bingo every turn.

Dusk turned into twilight and the weather had indeed cooled. I plunged my hand into the maroon Scrabble tile bag and scrounged for more letters.

What's up for you tomorrow? William asked.

Coaching at noon, then the health club....God, I don't know — hey, look at that!

And I played EXACT on a triple word score.

Woo! I'm winning! You should be worried, honey. Although it's not so much skill, you know.

Really? You think not?

I mean, it's a little skill, but it's really the letters you get. The balance of vowels and consonants. I'm winning this one because I have a good balance of letters. Just luck.

Hmmm.

William appended -ED to another word and I knew he was either saving letters to try to create one big word, or he was stuck with a lot of vowels. I may not be as competitive as him, but I was still enjoying this lead. A lot.

And then it happened. There were only three tiles remaining and I had a seven-letter word of my own. Not only that, but there was an easy place on the board to play it.

Yes, yes, yes!

William shook his head.

Come on, that never happens. C'mon!

I know. Amazing. Well played. Congrats.

You're shocked, right? Completely and utterly.

But it's still all about the balance of letters, right?

And skill, of course. Skill too. Play again?

A HOT DAY IN JULY (Part 2)

The temperature continued to rise. In the dark we lay under cool white sheets with the ceiling fan whipping above us.

Swish...swish...swish....

I stared at the blades, lit in moonlight, sweeping in rhythm like the hands of a sped-up clock. William slumbered away. Spencer, our cat, curled his body against mine and I rubbed his ears.

What's the what I want? In my head, my plans for marriage had transformed into a career, which of course it wasn't. I needed to step back and get some perspective. I could see how my galloping across Morocco and Poland and Italy was a creative act, but here, back home?

Tomorrow. Something. Maybe. What?

On that note I finally fell asleep.

Over breakfast the next morning, I suggested we eat dinner on our backyard deck that night.

Hey, it's hot now but should be nice and cool in the evening....I'll grill something.

William is many things. One thing he is not is a morning person.

Of course, I am completely a morning person. I wake up brimming with ideas and a need to voice them. And that's before coffee.

Once caffeinated, I'm on to dreams I had in the night, questions that kept me awake in the dark and, Wow, look at this story! I'll hold up the newspaper right in front of William's face. Meanwhile he's forcing down another spoon of cardboardy bran cereal while poring over the sports section, half asleep.

You know what we haven't done in a long time?

William shrugged.

Scrabble! When was the last time we played Scrabble over dinner?

William nodded.

Great! I'll get some fresh fish to grill and we'll play a game or two over dinner. Salad, strawberries....

By this point, he was in the shower. No matter, he didn't need to know the menu. It was going to be good. In a fresh burst of meal-planning creativity, I went to the grocery store and to the fish market to pick up a couple of tender salmon filets to go atop a Caesar salad.

Back home I washed and pared ripe strawberries, whipped up sweet cold cream, chilled white wine and marinated the fish. I set dishes on the deck table, making room for our giant deluxe rotating Scrabble board.

I lit candles and filled the CD player with music from Ella Fitzgerald, Monty Alexander and Miles Davis. At least on this day I had a purpose.

A HOT DAY IN JULY (Part 1)

In our part of Los Angeles it doesn't usually become "awful hot" until August; September brings increasing heat, then arrives October, also known as "fire season." But July of 2003 proved slightly different as temperatures inched into the nineties. William continued to work on his movie at a studio lot in the Valley.

I was muddling, hot and uncomfortable. True, I had found peace in our home, but I still had no leads on a life of purpose and creativity. One down, two to go. With the house renovation completed, my creativity languished in a moody state of uncertainty.

In our first year of living together we hosted thirty-five lunch or dinner parties. I studied cookbooks over breakfast and went to farmers' markets on weekends.

In a particularly desperate bid for creativity, I invited two small neighbor girls over for dinner and a movie one night when William would be working late. I suggested to their parents they could enjoy a night out while I entertained their daughters.

The children arrived on our doorstep and I sat them in front of salads decorated to look like little girl faces, with black olives for eyes, cucumber slices for cheeks, tomatoes for smiles and stripes of ranch dressing for long tresses.

The salad faces stared up at my small guests. The children blinked back at them and started eating. I followed up with gooey mac and cheese, ice cream sundaes and popcorn to go with an animated movie. I guess it felt good to be doing something good but my overeagerness to please depressed me.

The screenplay I had worked on for two years gained some traction when it advanced in the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences screenplay competition, the Nicholl Fellowships. Thrilled, I called William at work and we celebrated over the phone.

And that was that. I didn't go any further in the competition. I didn't win. I didn't get an agent or a producer call or a new career.

Do what you'd like, William said. We'll live on my salary. Do what you want.

Who wouldn’t want this scenario?

Me, that's who. Because I didn't know what. I looked into classes at a local college. Maybe art history or music history. Maybe English lit. Or maybe me crawling around a campus with a bunch of eighteen-year-olds would be an exercise in humiliation.

I did maintain a private coaching schedule and had a few actors arriving at our house to prepare for auditions. But these actors wanted roles more than they wanted to learn the craft of acting. I couldn't help them with career guidance. All I could teach them was how to break a script down into beats, then turn those beats into actions, then turn those actions into interesting performances. Who wants that in Hollywood?

THE END OF ANCIENT: February, 2003

At the top of the Via Veneto, William and I found a park called the Villa Borghese, an oasis with gardens, fountains, museums and pathways. A good place for a walk on our final Sunday together.

We skipped the museums and stuck to holding hands and strolling in the brisk air and golden light. We came across some stables and hung over fences to nuzzle horses as they breathed steamy gusts of air into our faces. We laughed at puppies rolling down hillsides. We chatted about where we were, both geographically and relationship-wise.

I wanted the perspective gained from my winter weeks in Italy to make me more secure and less needy about the magic "thing" I was supposed to do to trigger our engagement. I didn't want the anxiety of what, where or when.

As we luxuriated in the good fortune of our romantic haze, we knew only that we would miss each other. We were post-9/11 but pre-Iraq war and pre-global economic downturn. Otherwise, unknowingness was all I possessed. For someone who could daydream for hours in a state of mystery, I was getting a sky full of cloudiness.

I arrived back in Los Angeles and two days later received a dozen red roses with this note:

Mel,
Buon San Valentino al mio vero amore!
Love, William

Valentine's Day, 2003, and love, nurtured in Italy, landed on our doorstep across six thousand three hundred and fifty-three miles.

I clipped the stems, set each rose in sugar water and placed the vase next to the bed. As I reached to turn out the lamp my hand stopped in mid-click.

It's 2003. William and I have been together over four years. I beat my record. Engaged/not engaged. Married/not married. None of that matters on Valentine's night. I beat my record. I didn't use the Nikes and run away.

AMALFI: February, 2003 (Part 3)

I picked up a picnic lunch at a grocery store and wandered through pottery shops and a small stationery factory, where designs in cerulean blue and shiny gold curled around the edges of embossed linen papyrus. I bought a small compass in a store filled with all things seaworthy. After perusing the goods of the town I strolled along the beach, with its shuttered-up restaurants and boat-rental kiosks.

It was easy to imagine hot summer days and a seaside filled with lean, tanned bodies splashing in foamy waves. Still, I was more content to be alone here in winter. I took a bus way up the hillside to the town of Ravello, where I wandered gardens studded with alabaster statues of naked Italian men. Stone plazas offered views of the winding coastline far below.

The weather, though sunny, became increasingly cold. An icy wind tore at my jacket and I stopped periodically for cups of hot milk or chocolate. My sunglasses clouded as I stepped inside the warmth of coffee bars.

Freddo! a shopkeeper greeted me.

Si, si, I answered, rubbing my gloved hands together as if to show I understood.

I ate my lunch parked on a bench overlooking the ocean. I read my book under a tree and imagined an everyday life in such a place. So remote, so far up, so far away....

Nope. I loved it, but I couldn't live here. And now I was missing my boyfriend back in Rome. I left the Amalfi coast after a few days. As the countryside passed outside my train window, I pondered the facts. I had three more days with William then I was back to Los Angeles.

Peace, purpose, creativity. Where, when, how?

Once in Rome, William and I shared a dinner of salad and cold meats on the bed, caught up on our news and whispered love thoughts to each other, but no one went to sleep engaged to be married. Certainly no one in this room at the Excelsior Hotel on the Via Veneto was set to exchange time-tested vows and sign on the dotted line.

AMALFI: February, 2003 (Part 2)

I awoke in the dark to the crashing sound of thunder. Across the now-black sea, rain poured in sheets and lightning flared. I could make out roiling whitecaps in the ocean.

Dinner. I decided I was going to find a place out there, in that rainstorm, to eat. I grabbed my umbrella and set forth, getting pelted by raindrops so fat they resembled a Hollywood effect. I slipped and slid down slick stairs and across shiny cobblestones. Rain soaked my shoes and pants.

I crossed the main piazza, illuminated by occasional lightning flashes. Spears of light brightened the round top of the Duomo. It wasn't difficult to notice the inspiration Edgar Allen Poe may have found here.

It being winter, there weren't many choices for dinner, but I found one open trattoria. I stumbled in, slightly shocked by the heavy storm, and shook myself free of my damp coat. According to my guidebook, this family-run restaurant was known for its fresh seafood. An older — well, elderly — gentleman steered me to a table and pulled out a chair. I could see through to the kitchen, where his mama cooked, her face rosy in a cloud of steam. At the cash register his wife counted receipts.

I learned of all these relationships over my three-course meal of insalata, zuppa and golden-fried octopus and shrimp. The man, who was the family son, stopped by at each course for feedback and I told him, "Bella, bella and bella." He was tickled by my limited but positive response and offered a local treat to enjoy with my cappuccino.

He produced a tall bottle of greenish liquid. Basil liqueur, he explained, and poured me a small glass. An unusual but not unpleasing taste and oddly perfect on a winter night with a storm raging outside.

My new friend filled me in on some agricultural facts. Because the Amalfi coast includes the ancient city of Pompeii, Vesuvian ash is embedded in its soil, making its fertility remarkable. Here lemons were fat and tasty, tomatoes sweet and juicy, and basil especially fragrant.

The son took a serious tone when expressing sadness about 9/11 and his fears of an upcoming war (the U.S. was only a month away from marching into Afghanistan). He believed George Bush was a stupido, as was the Italian leader Silvio Berlusconi. He pined for Bill Clinton and brushed aside the former president's amores.

Capisco? he kept asking.

Si, si, I answered.

When it comes to sadness and fear, linguistic barriers disappear and an international fluency of the heart takes over. I thanked my host and his family for the delicious meal, donned my coat and stepped back outside to cross the piazza and return to the hotel.

My sleep that night was deep and dreamless. The next day dawned crystal-clear and brilliantly sunny. Amalfi, washed clean, awaited my exploration.