The Honeymoon Alone

A short story

Good morning. I’m excited to share some of my fiction writing here alongside my essays. I hope you enjoy this story.

The Honeymoon Alone

by Catherine Shannon

Americans love Italy. It promises us a sense of ancient meaning and beauty that is impossible to obtain domestically. For men, the fantasy starts in the usual place, with the image of the ideal Mediterranean girl—who possesses both virginal and whoreish qualities, a mix of Adriana La Cerva, the Virgin Mary, and their mother in various proportions—stationed somewhere in a garden, picking lemons. But the real fantasy, the deeper desire, is more complex and not about women at all. It is apparent only when you understand that most men harbor visions of glory, intrusive thoughts of themselves as distinguished generals, cunning heroes, or, if the man is gentler in spirit, perhaps a great orator, or a radical, philosophical mind. Being among the ruins of a bygone empire stirs something deep inside of them.

For the women, there’s the obvious appeal of the gondola boy, the uncircumcised lover, the man who can assure them that they are truly beautiful, beautiful in a European way, something that their boyfriends back in Boston would never understand. For women on vacation in Italy, romance is not only real, but a real possibility. For a week, they get to don the costumes of virgin and whore, and what could be more intoxicating than trying on that contented, fresh, Italian sensuality? They get to be the kind of girl who wears a delicate anklet and lets her hair air-dry by the Mediterranean Sea. Basically, Americans go to Italy to feel sexy for once.

I mulled this over while I stood in Terminal 2 of the Naples airport, next to a souvenir shop that sold thin polyester boxer shorts printed with an image of the Statue of David’s marble penis. It’s all a fantasy, I thought to myself, as I stared at the slightly-pixelated image of the penis. Europe itself is a fantasy, because the government bureaucrats, the managerial elite, Airbnb, and the relative ease of international travel have almost completely drained Europe of its mystique and vitality. You feel the suffocating bureaucracy immediately, due to the draconian baggage restrictions. There’s no easy European sensuality to be found here.

“Too heavy, Miss. Eight kilos maximum.”

That’s what the Lufthansa gate agent told me during my layover in Munich, with the standard German air of indifference. (Does she know that’s only seventeen pounds? Hardly enough to cover my skincare products and clothes, let alone my travel hair dryer, a pair of high heels, my Prada bag, and a sensible pair of walking shoes.) One thing is clear: there’s barely any life left here for the Europeans themselves, let alone American visitors. But what do I know, I’m an American tourist just like the rest of them. Here I am, among my countrymen, alone.

•

I lit a cigarette on the beach and thought back to the whole debacle that brought me here. About eight months ago, my ex-fiancé booked a room for us here for seven nights, at the Borgo di Vetro, a five-star luxury hotel on the Amalfi Coast. It’s early August now, peak tourist season, and this trip was supposed to be our honeymoon. When I discovered Stephen’s affair with Victoria, his so-called “work wife,” I told him I was coming here anyway, by myself, and that he would pay for all of it. He obliged, though he really had no choice. His mother apologized to me with tears in her eyes, which I appreciated, but I also thought was a bit much.

I met Stephen on Bumble, but I discovered his affair on Venmo, just two months before the wedding. It all started and ended with an app. This is the great millennial legacy. Young women haunted by their suspicions should, at the very least, check Venmo. That would be my advice. One of my art history professors at Stanford, an elegant French woman who always wore one of those shapeless, Art Basel sack dresses—I sometimes pictured her at exclusive museum openings swirling a dry red, something like a Beaucastel, or on dates, with intellectual, salt-and-pepper-haired men, picking selectively at the cheese plate—she told me that if you want to know what really happened, you should “follow the money.” This is sound advice, whether you want to understand the collapse of the Roman Empire or the mind of a thirty-year-old man. The Venmo transactions never lie. Ultimately, what I found was uninspiring: a single charge, for $45, accompanied by three hotdog emojis. Every woman instinctively senses the indignity on display when a man uses emojis, but splitting the bill with your mistress is undignified in the extreme. I can only assume Stephen took Victoria to the San Francisco Giants game against the Phillies, the one he told me was a work event. (I always refused to go to baseball games with him, and if this was a fault of mine, so be it. But he had a mistress he split the check with, and I can’t think of anything more selfish than that.)