Up to that point, Giancarlo had been immersed in a rather curious dream about the ocean. In the dream he had been sitting on a beach by the water’s edge, looking out at the windswept waves tumbling toward him.This in itself would not have been so strange except that he was sitting there at an upright piano, feverishly trying to think of a song to play as the waves crashed far out from shore. Before he could summon up a tune, the surf came rolling in with a great surge, washing over his feet as he tried to step on the piano pedals. As the water rushed back out, eroding the sand beneath him, the piano listed to one side and began to sink. Giancarlo heard a loud thump and looked up to the top of the piano, where a smiling Patricia, still wearing her party dress from the previous evening, was standing atop a surfboard. “Come on!” she was calling down to him. “You should really give this a try!”

It was just at that odd juncture that Giancarlo had suddenly awoken. Now, with the memory of the dream rushing away from his consciousness like the broken waves rushing back to the sea, he propped himself up on an elbow and cocked his ear toward the door, straining to hear. From out on the front stoop came the sound of voices followed by a series of loud knocks.

“Giancarlo!” someone called again.

Giancarlo recognized the man’s voice as that of his cousin Anthony. His cousin’s wife, Celeste, was no doubt with him. Giancarlo gave a groan, slid his legs out from beneath the covers, and set his feet on the floor.With another yawn he pulled on his robe and pushed his feet into his slippers.

“Aspetta, mannaggia—I’m coming!” he cried at hearing another series of knocks.

As expected, Giancarlo found Anthony and Celeste standing on the front step when he finally opened the door. The two were one of those annoyingly happy couples whose entire married life seemed to be one long, incessant, uninterrupted conversation, never a quiet, contemplative moment between them—or for anyone else who happened to be near.They had been jabbering away the whole time they waited for Giancarlo to come to the door. As soon as the obligatory good mornings and exclamations of relief that they had indeed found him at home were complete, the pair clamored into the front hall of Giancarlo’s formerly tranquil domain.

“Giancarlo, cosa fai? What are you doing still in your pajamas?” exclaimed Anthony with a click of his tongue. “I thought you were always up at the crack of dawn.”

“We were sure that by now you would have been up for hours with the coffee already made,” Celeste chimed in before Giancarlo could respond. She held up a string-tied box. “See, we brought some goodies from the bakery to have with it.”