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right up to me — it was awesome.”
    “You’re dreaming. She lives in northern Italy. You’ll never see her again.”
    “We’ll be in Venice in ten days, dude. Her city’s only a couple of hours away by train and she had already planned to be there that weekend for a trip to a museum.”
    Woods suddenly had a bad feeling. “You’ve already
talked
to her about Venice?”
    “Sure. Why not?”
    “You hardly know her.”
    “I spent the whole day with her. After you went back to the ship we went for a walk in Naples—”
    “Beautiful Naples—”
    “We found a really cool farmer’s market kind of place. Fresh vegetables, all kinds of stuff. It was great to walk around—”
    “Wait, wait, don’t tell me, you held hands—”
    “Hey, bite me. Anyway, I like her a lot. And you’d better get used to it. I want to get to know her. What’s wrong with that?”
    “Nothing I guess.” He actually couldn’t think of anything that was wrong with it. It just struck him as odd that she just happened to have plans to be in Venice when the carrier pulls in. “Nice coincidence.”
    “Oh, what? She’s scheming to get close to me or something? Why? So she can get my fortune from my parents’ vegetable stand in New York? Give me a break.”
    “It’s just an interesting coincidence.” Woods stretched his arms out in his leather flight jacket and breathed deeply. He looked at his watch. “Aw,
man
.”
    “What?”
    “I’ve got Boat O in fifteen minutes. I just want to hit the rack.”
    “You’re on at midnight?”
    “Yep.”
    “Which boat?”
    “E-boat.”
    “Damn, man. You get all the luck. Slamming through the waves for three or four hours with sailors throwing up and shit all over the boat?” He leaned back and looked envious. “Wish I could go.”
    Woods nodded. “Eat your heart out. If I’m really lucky it’ll be raining and thirty-eight degrees and the visibility will be half a mile, and we’ll get hit by some merchant ship and all be killed.”
    “That
would
be cool. Just like Barcelona.”
    Woods looked at his watch again. “I’ve got to head down. You gonna hit the rack?”
    “Yeah. I’ve got to get up early. Evals due tomorrow. I haven’t even started. I don’t even know the names of the sailors in ops yet. But I’m supposed to rate them and say what great sailors they are.”
    Woods stood up. “You should know them by now,” he scolded. He thought for a second. “What kind of name is Irit? Doesn’t sound Italian. Doesn’t end in a vowel, like Sophia, or . . . I don’t know . . . Manuela or something.”
    “Manuela is Spanish, dude.”
    “No, it isn’t. You’re thinking of Consuela, or something. I met an Italian woman named Manuela.”
    “Whatever. Anyway, Irit is Italian. She’s from northern Italy, near Austria. You heard her. Torentino, I think. Maybe it’s part German.”
    “Yeah. Could be, except Torentino is in the southern part of Italy.”
    “Whatever. I probably got the city wrong. What time do you get off — 0300?”
    “Yeah. Maybe 0400.”
    “You’re going to be tired tomorrow.”
    “I’m gonna to sleep in.”
    “No you’re not. Quarters is at 0800 on the flight deck.”
    Woods groaned and hung his head. “I forgot.”
    “Hey, it’s important. Sailor of the hour, or something.”
    “Think they’d notice if I didn’t show?”
    “XO would have your ass.”
    “The life of a Naval officer is one long battle for sleep.” He zipped up his flight jacket. “There must be studies. People do hard things better when they’re sleep-deprived.”
    “They’re doing the studies now, dude. With
us
.”
    “I’ll wake you up when I get in.”
    “If you do, I’ll drop my alarm clock on your head.” Vialli slept on the top bunk.
    They walked aft from the wardroom together, stepping over the curved bulkhead openings that were nine inches off the deck — the knee knockers. The O3 level was just below the flight deck; their stateroom was exactly where the