“I got passes!” Catherine screamed, bursting into her dorm room, where Nicola was napping one early spring afternoon.   
    “To what?”
    “Duh! To Fashion Week! Middle rows, but we’re in, two each day for two days.”  Catherine did a ridiculous strut around the room shouting “Yes!” then said to the air, “Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mommy!”
    Then Nicola remembered what she’d promised to do. “Shit,” she said, “I forgot to ask my father for passes! Damnit!”   
Catherine, still ecstatic, said, “No problem. We won't need them. We’ve got these.”
    “Yes, but what about Jenny, Suzanne and Mercédes?  You only have four passes.”
    “Oh, Jenny won’t really care, and I guess we’ll have to draw straws or flip a coin.”
    “Jeez, I’d feel terrible if one of them missed it," knowing that Jenny said she'd no interest in the shows.  "Look, I screwed up. I won't go.”
    A look of mock horror came over Catherine’s face. “Oh, no-no, Nick, I love those girls but you’re by far the most fashion conscious, with your background and everything.  I really want to be with you at those shows.”
    “Well, if I go to one show one day, Mercédes or Suzanne can go with you the other day.”
    Catherine pouted like a child for a moment but said, “Che sera sera,” recalling the title of an old hit song by Doris Day.  “Whatever will be, will be.” Catherine seemed resigned to somehow fix the arrangements but the shows were coming up the following week, so she forced herself to think about the critical question of what she would wear.
    She wasn’t quite sure whether it was tacky to wear the clothes of the designer whose show she was attending, and, although the models would be showing fall fashions, it was now March, one of those ridiculous in-between seasons when you can’t really wear spring clothes and don’t want to show up in that winter’s clothes.
    “Nick,” Catherine said, standing up and sticking her chin out.  “We have obviously not taken Italian fashion seriously enough since we got here. It’s time to fix that. Tomorrow we go shopping for things to wear at the shows.”
    Nicola did not put up a battle. Tomorrow was Friday, when no one had classes, and there were a few sales in the better stores. 
    “I guess I have to tell the other girls right now, then,” said Catherine, wondering why something so wonderful had to be such a bummer.  But, as it turned out, Suzanne had two overdue mid-term papers to bang out and couldn’t possibly break away to attend a show.  Catherine tried seeming to be very sorry but was actually glad it would be Mercédes, who, being Argentinean, showed considerable Latin style in the way she dressed.
    The next day, as soon as the stores rolled up their corrugated metal doors, the three American women went prowling, first to some of the moderately priced stores like Max Mara and Benetton, both near the Duomo, then, emboldened by having each bought outfits by one o’clock, decided to cruise through the high fashion shops along the Via Montenapoleone and Via della Spiga—Ungaro, Armani, Pucci, Versace, Gucci, Loro Piano, Roberto Cavallo and the brand new Mariella Burani—skipping entirely the French designers on those same streets.   
    The girls went without lunch, already fearful they had gained weight since arriving in Milan, and by four o’clock were exhausted.  Catherine overbought and Nicola and Mercédes had to carry a couple of her packages. “None of it will go to waste,” said Catherine, trying not to seem too ridiculous after purchasing three pairs of shoes, two handbags, and one Versace outfit she hadn’t a clue as to where she would wear it back home.
    Mercédes went for bright colors and came away with a beautiful fuchsia blazer and striped slacks.  Nicola, without the money to buy what she’d seen on Via Montenapoleone, had purchased items she knew she would wear again and again, even if they seemed a bit too high fashion for Belmont.  Like her grandmother, she eschewed anything black, instead buying a gorgeous white and navy blue dress cut on the bias—a style that she could see took expert tailoring—which she matched with a small handbag in a lighter blue with a gold chain strap.  She also bought a couple of headbands—she loved headbands—and a pair of striped espadrilles she’d get good mileage out of.  None of the shoes she liked could she afford.
    Back at the dorm the women showed off their new clothes to the other students, then Catherine offered to take Jenny, Suzanne, Mercédes and Nicola for drinks at the bar of the Grand Sforza Hotel, recently opened in a renovated 15th century palazzo.
    “It’ll give us a chance to break in the new duds,” said Catherine, headed for the shower. “Let’s meet in one hour.”
    An hour and a half later, the women, dressed to be devastating and with somewhat more make-up than was usual for them, sat in the swank bar lounge at the hotel, sipping perfectly made negronis, martinis and Camparis—the fact that none of them was twenty-one made no difference in Italy—and nibbling on the salted nuts, potato crisps and olives set on the table and frequently replenished by a succession of young waiters in white jackets, who were eager to get a closer look at the five attractive Americani. 
        There was no nebbia that evening, but there was a scent in the city air that promised spring was finally on its way.  The women raised their glasses and said, with fluent authority, “Salute!” to which Nicola added, “Cent’anni! May we all live to be a hundred and come back here for an anniversary dinner!”
    “Even if we’re on walkers or in wheelchairs!” added Jenny.
    By this point in their Italian sojourn, nearly every wistful moment of homesickness had left them, and they’d all come to feel the marvelous contentment of knowing a foreign city well enough always to recall it with insight and con amore, knowing they would return to renew those feelings in the years ahead, perhaps with husbands or children along. 
    Each had acquired enough Italian to cope nicely in most situations—Jenny and Suzanne had taken a basic Italian class back at Columbia—and the feeling of being foreigners regarded as alien by the Milanese had by now evaporated into a cordial affection for these smart young women from I Stati Uniti who were so truly eager to absorb the best the city had to offer them.
        In the piazza, the majestic Duomo, encrusted with spires and buttresses and hundreds of statues offering their stony benedictions to the great city, glowed in the anchored lights from below and from a full moon overhead that signaled the official arrival of spring that very day.
        “Let’s drink to the best idea we ever had,” said Suzanne, “to Italia!” and they did, proud of what they’d accomplished in their lives back home, in their studies, and in their embrace of the rich culture of Milan.   And at that moment, Suzanne, who’d always thought of going into politics now began to consider pursuing a career as an ambassador, perhaps to Italy someday. 
        Jenny, too, who’d always had an interest in the somewhat narrow study of archeology in the Midwest, now saw the opportunities for such research in Italy to be immeasurable.  Mercédes, in pre-med, gave no thought to someday practicing in Italy, but in visits with doctors and to hospitals in Milan she had come away impressed with the tender degree of caring and time the staff spent with their patients, an approach she found so often lacking in United States and South American medicine, where the profit motive and insurance seemed to drive every decision about a patient’s care.
        Catherine, even more than the others that night, seemed blissfully adrift, giddy to be away from the life of privilege that she’d found stifling and empty of any purpose other than sustaining itself.  For the time being Catherine was keeping the future at bay.
        Nicola, enjoying the last sip of her Campari and soda, was smiling, though more silent than usual that evening.
        “What’s with you tonight?” asked Catherine.
       “Oh, nothing, really.  I was just thinking that in so many ways everything here is so beautiful—the art, the clothes, the food, the people. Look at this room, this glassware, these waiters!  I guess I’m feeling a little detached from where I came from, and that bothers me.  I owe my family so much, but sometimes I think that I’ve, oh, I don’t know, outgrown them.  The Bronx is not anything like it is here, Catherine, and I’m beginning to realize just how different it is.  I mean, I’ve always thought of myself as an Italian girl and have been very proud to also be an American.  While I’m here, though, I feel somehow closer to”—she waved her hand in front of her—“all this.  I never thought I’d feel this way.”
        Catherine hugged her friend and said, “Hey, Nick, you just promised we’d all live a hundred years. You’ve got plenty of life to live on both sides of the Atlantic.  Don’t look so deeply into everything. Come on: la dolce vita! And what is it?  Il dolce far niente? 
         She took a sip of her negroni and looked directly at Nicola.
        “You know what you need?” she asked.
        “What do  I need, Catherine?”
        “You need to have a fling with one of these Italian guys. A big, juicy, hot fling.  It’ll clear your mind.”
        “That’s really what you think I need?” asked Nicola, wondering how her friend could be so simplistic.  “I haven’t seen you have your big fling yet.”
        “Hey, I’m coasting here,” said Catherine. “I had enough to last me a while back in New York.  My head is as clear as it’s going to get, at least for this semester.  Not that I’m against having a fling over here.  Shit, I’m surprised it hasn’t happened yet.”
        Nicola shook her head and said, “I love you, Catherine, especially when you’re being completely carefree.”
        “Well, then, here’s to being carefree!”
        They clinked glasses and Catherine called for the bill, which she paid, leaving a huge tip.