I’m told that it takes three confirmed miracles to merit sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church. I believe that finding a parking space in downtown Florence or a lounge chair by a pool in summer should both qualify. Heaven smiled on me that day. As I entered the pool area, a man was gathering his things, leaving the only vacancy. It happened to be a chaise next to her.

After draping my towel across the length of the chair and covering my body with 30+ sunscreen, I took my laptop from my bag and turned it on. The image on the screen was too vague from the sun’s glare, so I closed it back up and went for my standby: a mechanical pencil and a wire-bound notepad I had purchased the day before at a supermarket in Florence. On the notepad’s cover was a photograph of a lemon wearing round-lensed granny glasses. The picture was titled John Lemon. I wondered if the Italians understood the pun.

I lifted my pencil to the page, not because I had words, but because a blank page beckoned. Perhaps I inherited this trait from my father. A new board begs a nail, he once told me. My father is a carpenter.

But there was too much noise and motion around me to write. After ten minutes I put the notebook away, took out a book and began to read. Suddenly a thin, bald Italian man stopped in front of me. He had skin as brown as leather and was wearing what looked like the bottom half of a woman’s bikini.

“Non si possono portare le scarpe sul bordo della piscina.”

I looked up at him. “Scusa,” I said in my two-week-old Italian. “No capito.”

He pointed at my feet. In truth I had no idea what he wanted. I wore only white-soled tennis shoes. The worst infraction I could conceive being guilty of was a fashion faux pas. I looked at him blankly.

Suddenly the woman next to me said in perfect English, “He’s telling you that shoes are not allowed in the pool area.”

I glanced over at the woman, whom I had assumed was Italian, then back at the man. “Mi dispiace,” I said, as I removed my shoes.

“Grazie, signorina,” he said to the woman and walked away.

I sat back in my chair. “Thank you.”

“It’s nothing.” After a moment she asked, “Where in the States are you from?”

I wondered that I was so obvious an American. “Salt Lake City.”

A smile broke across her face. “Really? I’m from Vernal.”

“Vernal, Utah?”

“Sì. Il mondo e piccolo.” It’s a small world.

Vernal is a small town in the eastern desert of Utah: a stop on the way to someplace else. Even in Utah I had never met anyone from Vernal.

“I thought you were Italian.”

“So do the Italians. I lived here for six years. After that much time you start looking like a local.” She laid her book in her lap and leaned over, extending her hand. “I’m Eliana.”