It was a lively place, just the thing Carter needed that day, so he walked down the steps and sat down to soak in the scene for a while. Nearby, a group of teenaged girls were talking a mile a minute among themselves. In fact, as he looked about, it seemed to Carter that just about everybody in the piazza and on the steps was talking—and all at the same time. Even those around him who were sitting alone were yacking into cell phones. Carter settled back and smiled as he listened to them all, trying to understand snippets of their conversations. He found that he rather enjoyed the sound of their voices. He particularly loved those of the Italian women, for it seemed that they sang the language more than they spoke it. It was really quite captivating.

Carter had been sitting there for a time when some of the boys who had been kicking the ball down on the piazza climbed up the steps and sat down near the teenaged girls. One of the boys was wearing an American-style football shirt emblazoned with the insignia of a team called the Dallas Falcons. The boy happened to glance Carter’s way and noticed him looking at his shirt.

“Hey, Americano,” the boy said amiably, giving him a nod.

“How did you know I’m American?” a curious Carter asked him in Italian.

The boy shrugged and made an expression quite similar to the one Michele, the trattoria owner, had made the night before.Then he laughed, and tugged at the front of his shirt.

“Tell them,” he said, gesturing to his friends. “The Dallas Falcons—best football team in all of NFL America, right?”

The boy seemed so proud of his shirt that Carter did not have the heart to tell him that there was no such team back home.There were, in the National Football League, the Atlanta Falcons and the Dallas Cowboys, but alas, no Dallas Falcons. Somebody somewhere, Carter speculated, was probably making a killing selling the phony shirts to people who did not know any better. Still, he did not want to embarrass the boy in front of his friends, or worse, the girls.

“You’re right,” he told the boy, giving him a thumbs-up. “They’re definitely the best.”

This pleased the boy immensely, and he proudly nudged his friends to show them that he had been right about his favorite American sports team.