“Just wait. What you see next is going to make you want to stay here forever.”
People kept pushing us away from each other, so Ren linked arms with me and we headed up the river, stepping over a long-haired guy sitting with his back to the water. He was playing a banged-up guitar and singing “Imagine” in a heavy accent.
“?‘Ee-magine all da pee-pull,’?” Ren sang. “My dad has this book that’s supposed to teach English song lyrics to Italian speakers. I think that guy back there could really use it.”
“Hey, at least he got the feeling right. He sounds really nostalgic.” My arm was kind of heating up where Ren’s was interlocked with mine, but before I could think about it, he pulled away and put both hands on my shoulders.
“Ready to swallow your gum?”
“What?”
“Ready to see Ponte Vecchio?”
“Of course. That’s why we’re here, right?”
He turned and pointed. “This way.”
The sidewalk had led us to a small commuter bridge. It was paved with asphalt, and a bunch of tourists were milling around blankets set up with displays of knockoff bags and sunglasses. So not impressive.
“This is it?” I asked, trying not to sound disappointed. Maybe it was cooler at sunset.
Ren guffawed. “No. Not this bridge. Trust me, you’ll know it when you see it.”
We headed toward the center of the bridge, and a dark-skinned man stepped out in front of his blanket of stuff, blocking our way. “Young man. You want nice Prada handbag for girlfriend? Five hundred euro in store, but ten euro for you. Make her fall in true love.”
“No thanks,” Ren said.
I nudged him. “I don’t know, Ren. That sounds like a pretty good deal. Ten bucks for true love?”
He smiled, stopping in the center of the bridge. “You didn’t see it, did you?”
“See wha—oh.”
I ran over to the railing. Stretched across the river, about a quarter mile ahead of us, was a bridge that looked like it had been built by fairies. Three stone arches rose gracefully out of the water, and the whole length of it was lined with a floating row of colorful buildings, their edges hanging over the water. Three mini-arches were cut out of the center, and the whole thing was lit golden in the darkness, its reflection sparkling back up at itself.
Gum officially swallowed.
Ren was grinning at me.
“Wow. I don’t even know what to say.”
“I know, right? Come on.” He looked to his right, then his left, then launched himself over the side like a pole vaulter.
“Ren!”
I leaned over, fully expecting to see him dog-paddling toward Ponte Vecchio, but instead came face-to-face with him. He was crouching on a table-size ledge that jutted out about five feet below the side of the bridge and he looked ridiculously pleased with himself.
“I was waiting for a splash.”
“I know. Now come on. Just make sure no one sees you.”
I looked over my shoulder, but everyone was too involved in the whole fake-Prada-bag thing to pay me any attention. I climbed over, dropped down next to him. “Is this allowed?”
“Definitely not. But it’s the best view.”
“It’s amazing.” Being just a few feet lower somehow cut out the noise of the people above us, and I swear Ponte Vecchio was glowing even brighter and more regal. It gave me a solemn, awestruck kind of feeling. Like going to church. Only I wanted to stay here for the whole rest of my life.
“So what do you think?” Ren asked.
“It makes me think of this time my mom and I drove to a poppy reserve in California. The flowers all bloom at once and we timed our visit just right. It was pretty magical.”
“Like this?”
“Yeah.”
He shimmied back next to me and we both rested our heads against the wall, just looking. I have finally found the place that feels right to me. It was like she was waving at me from just across the water. If I squinted I could almost see her. My eyes fogged up a little, turning Ponte Vecchio’s lights into big gold halos, and I had to spend like thirty seconds pretending to have some mysterious Arno dust in my eye.
For once, Ren was being totally quiet and once the crying jag had passed I looked over at him. “So why is it called ‘Old Bridge’? Isn’t everything old here?”
“It’s the only bridge that survived World War II, and it’s really, really old, even by Italian standards. Like medieval old. Those house-looking things used to be butcher shops. They’d just open the windows and dump all the blood and guts into the river.”
“No way.” I glanced at the windows again. Most of them had green shutters and they were all closed for the night. “They’re way too pretty for that. What are they now?”
“High-end jewelry shops. And you see those windows spaced out across the very top of the bridge?”
I nodded. “Yeah?”
“Those go to a hallway. It’s called the Vasari Corridor and it was used by the Medici as a way to get around Florence without having to actually walk through the city.”