“Which boat?”

When he said the Esther Oratta I got that very excited feeling you get when something great happens because the Esther Oratta was the biggest and most beautiful yacht in the whole harbor. It had been docked in Portofino every year since we had been coming here. Mom had always wondered aloud who the owner was and now I was going to have lunch on it!

At one-thirty Gino came walking toward where I was waiting on the dock. He had changed out of his usual dungarees and was now wearing a light blue summer suit with a yellow silk shirt and a red cravat. He also had on a white straw hat. By the way he walked I could tell he had had some drinks while he was getting ready for lunch. He was choosing where he put his feet pretty carefully.

When we stepped on to the yacht a crewman in uniform saluted us while another took our arms to help us off the gangplank onto the teak deck.

Ropes lay coiled in perfect circles on the deck. The brass fittings were polished up to where they glittered white hot in the sun. Everything was starched and ironed-looking. From the crew’s white pants and T-shirts with the name of the boat on them to the cushions on the wicker chairs that were in a semicircle on the back deck, every item was fresh, new, perfect. We followed the sailor into a big lounge. It had a real fireplace in it and over the fireplace a painting of a ballerina, which was in a huge gold frame. Gino pointed to the painting and whispered to me, “Degas.”

The sailor led us down a hall to another lounge in the front of the boat. This one had a dining room table in it. It was made of chrome-plated steel and had a glass top that was so thick the edges looked like blue ice. In the middle of the table was a huge silver bowl of roses that must have had at least two hundred big coral pink rosebuds in it.

A man in a white suit and sunglasses stood up and stretched out his arms in a welcoming gesture to us when we came in. He looked about seventy years old and walked with a limp like one leg was way shorter than the other.

“Maestro!” he said as he hugged Gino and kissed him on both cheeks. Then he shook my hand as Gino introduced us. “Don Andriotti, thees ees my younga friend Calvin, Calvin, Don Andri-otti.” I shook hands and Mr. Andriotti said, “I ‘ope you likea my boat.” I said I did.