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with a large map.
    “There’s a hospital about seven kilometers away,” he said. “I took a traveler there two summers ago when he had a heart attack.”
    “Shit,” said Mr. D’Angelo, scratching his head. He held my wrist for a few moments. “Well, she’s not having a heart attack.”
    “Probably not,” Mr. Brixton said. “But it’ll be free to visit, and they’re very good.”
    “Free? You mean, like, they bill you later?”
    “No, it’s totally free. The man ended up needing surgery and he didn’t pay a penny.”
    “No shit! Is it like that in England, too? Here, sweetheart, see if you can stand.” While Mr. Brixton educated Mr. D’Angelo on the finer points of socialized medicine, the two men helped me to my feet.
    “How you feelin’?” Mr. D’Angelo asked as the three of us, now a unit, slowly moved as one across the parking lot.
    “Better,” I said woozily. “How come the ground keeps moving?”
    “Oh dear,” said Mr. Brixton.
    “She’s talking and breathing and her pulse is okay,” Mr. D’Angelo said. “She probably just ate the wrong thing, or not enough. You know how these girls are.” We were nearly to the bus.
    “I certainly do,” Mr. Brixton said with a sigh. “My own niece thinks that Kate Moss is just the most beautiful thing in the world. Hardly eats a thing, and smokes like a chimney.”
    “Kate Moss looks like a bag of bones,” Mr. D’Angelo said, shaking his head. “I don’t get these magazines. Why would I wanna be with a girl who looks like she’s dead?”
    “I couldn’t agree with you more,” Mr. Brixton said. Before they could continue their discussion of unhealthy body image in women’s fashion, the driver came down to help them get me on the bus.
    My recollection of what follows is a bit hazy. I do remember being deposited in a seat near the front. I have a vivid memory of the driver picking a lemon off a nearby tree, halving it, and placing each half on my wrists. I think it was supposed to help with nausea.
    I also remember Mr. D’Angelo announcing, “All right, kids. Another change of plans. We gotta skip the beach.”
    An enormous hue and cry arose on the bus.
    “What the fuck?” Amber shouted. “Why can’t we just drop her off at the hotel and then go?”
    “We’re not going to the hotel,” Mr. D’Angelo replied. “We’re going to the hospital.” He paused. “Now sit down and shut up.” There was a steely note in his voice that did not invite argument, even from entitled, angry, aggressively pretty New Jersey homecoming princesses used to getting their way.
    We sped off to the hospital, whizzing around hairpin turns at a pace that would have terrified me if I hadn’t been off floating in some la-la land beyond fear. It was very quiet now inside my head. My mind had detached from my body, and any sensation I felt—the tingling, sweating, shaking—seemed to be happening to someone else. My thoughts moved through mud.
    If I’d been able to string two coherent ideas together, I might have wondered just what sort of hospital I was about to visit. Sicily is not generally known as the epicenter of First World medical care. I sincerely doubt that any Italian, upon learning of his or her diagnosis of cancer, has ever said, “Well, to Sicily we go! They can fix anything down there.” I’m also fairly sure no one else of any other nationality has ever uttered these words.
    Had I been capable of such imaginative thought, I might have envisioned an open-roofed shack with walls woven of leaves and vines. A toothless, wrinkled old brown strega would sit out front with a shotgun, a bread knife, and a jar of fermented blood oranges. The patients who showed promise would have the sickness cut out with the knife, with some booze to dull the pain (and another swig to keep the witch’s spirits up). The direst cases would simply get a swift prayer and a shotgun blast to the temple.
    What I got instead was a modern facility with a roof, doors, and