Heather and I met Antonio two nights ago while frantically trying to figure out how to get from San Marco Square to the shuttle pick-up across town in the six and a half minutes we had to spare. Always open to new adventures, that night Heather and I found ourselves in the audience of a David Gilmour concert under the full moon in the middle of the square for the mere price of a cup of coffee. It was our first night in Venice, and we had no idea how to get around, but we knew if we missed this last shuttle there wouldn’t be a way to get back to our hostel on the mainland. Antonio saw us running and tried to help us. He was dressed in a traditional gondolier outfit with black and white stripes and a red sash hanging from his belt loops. He found us a water taxi driver who didn’t rip us off too much, and cried as we left, “Don’t leave! I love you! Both of you!”
The next day, we bumped into Antonio on the Venetian streets and I told him it was Heather’s birthday, which was true. He asked us to meet him at seven when he was finished working, and he took us on a gondola ride. Heather and I had roses with us, and we picked off the petals one by one and threw them into the water as we made wishes for the year ahead. I handed Antonio a rose as a thank you, and he looked me in the eyes and blushed, “Thank you, my beauty.” It started to rain fifteen minutes into our ride, and he brought the boat back to its dock and invited us to his apartment, a stone’s throw away from the Basilica di San Marco. The three of us spent the next six hours together around his kitchen table, talking and laughing and sharing stories.
The energy and connection between us was apparent and powerful. Antonio had trained to be a homeopathic healer in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, which I decided to interpret as a sign because, though I hadn’t ever been to Doylestown, I grew up in the same state. He was handsome, on the skinny side. His eyes were beautiful, his gaze intense. His English was impeccable. Throughout the night, he would touch me, gently and respectfully—a brush across my hand as he poured the wine, a hand on my shoulder as he walked by. At one point, he demonstrated a massage technique on my neck and the intensity of his hand on my bare skin was electric.
