Getting Lucky in May

It was summer in the Mediterranean in the ’60s.
Everything I packed was black—so liberating!
Our madcap townhouse smelled like candy, sort of
citrusy: blood oranges, pink pepper and tangerines.
New York had been laden with an excess of
beach-to-black-tie gladiators; frighteningly fluorescent,
high-octane bacteria. Here, baring your midriff
wasn’t a hippie thing—just kind of sexy, like baking
bread with cherry-punch jelly; the sweet scents
of whipped avocado and sea algae. Tiny baby braids
throughout your hair, your glassy Cupid’s bow
and ballet dancer ankles: miraculous works of art.
Playing music from the bathroom sink, we were
dollhouse ingénues—dark violet, smudging lipstick.