Inviting me to sit, he stood and smiled as if he were presenting me with a gift. Looking down at my new shoes, I slipped both feet into the soft leather. My feet slid into the shoes with perfect ease and just as the toes reached the tips the shoes gently clasped around my feet, giving me a feeling of being held. They were warm, too, and as the shoes hugged my feet I recalled a sensation I had felt once before when I was alone in my attic with my sister’s babysitter, Jenna. Having Luigi watching my expression made this seem very much like that time in my attic; at once exhilarated and embarrassed by the transparency of my pleasure.

My satisfaction - and Luigi’s pride - unmistakable, I got up, paid him for the shoes, and started back to the guest house. This time the walk up the hill was pure delight, my feet purred over the pebbles.

The next day the car came to take me to the airport and I was sad when the driver took another route down the hill, away from Luigi’s shop. At the airport I picked up a book on Sicily and read it on the flight back to England.

At home I recited the lies I had been practicing the last few days. I spoke of The Venus of Urbino, and Botticelli, and, of course, my favorite painting, Leonardo's Annunciation. I admitted to him that I favored Florence to Rome; having spent more time studying the former it was the safer choice. My father was so pleased with my adventure that he insisted I travel again the next year. France? Turkey? Greece!? He buzzed with possibilities. “Sicily,” I said.

“But you’ve already gone to Italy.”

“Not to the islands, Papa,” I said, playing to his appreciation for cultivated distinctions.

Then I booked a flight to Elba.