Excerpt from Libretto (October 2021)
“Christmas Night: A Complicated Courtship” Ally Crosbie (narrator) and her new acquaintance Elaine Bishop are dining in London.

That evening Elaine and I made our way by cab through an early darkness to Cafe Carlyle in Chelsea, which she described as “sedate, but swinging.” An oxymoron, but I didn’t mention it. She had reserved a corner banquette, which kept us away from much of the babble.
“What a day,” Elaine said. “I thought Patrizia would be alone, but instead she invited half the city.” A waiter stood by attentively. “Would you like a drink or some wine?” she asked me.
“Vodka rocks with two olives,” I said. Vodka-infused olives sounded like a delicious treat at that moment.
Elaine raised her eyebrows. “Plymouth Martini up, very dry, with a twist,” she said to the waiter. “And some of those hot cheese puffs you just delivered to the table over there.” When he had departed she asked, “Did you have fun today? What did you get up to?”
“I found some brunch, and then I walked it off.”
“London’s a good walking city, as long as you can find a taxi if you need one.” The drinks arrived and the cheese puffs followed. “Cheers,” she said, raising her glass. “To a happy holiday.”
“Salute.” I allowed the fiery vodka to warm my throat before I asked, “Patrizia is Renato’s sister?”
Elaine took a deep breath and put down her glass. “I’d just like to say, or to ask, could we possibly relax a little bit? I’d just as soon not spend the evening making small talk, if it’s okay with you. For example, let’s stay away from our current opera snarl, although I will say that last night you gave me a succinct confirmation of most of my doubts about this – thing – I’ve allowed myself to sign onto. Thanks for that.” She took a sip of her gin. “What else occupies your mind? You’ve done some travel writing, or so you mentioned at Renata’s. In addition to your music critiques. Tell me where you’ve been. What are your favorite places?” 
A waiter appeared. “Would you like to order, madam?” he asked Elaine.
“Well, yes, we’d better,” she said. She looked at me. “What would you like?”
I’d been reading the menu while Elaine was talking. “Prime rib,” I said. “Medium rare. Potatoes dauphinoise. Brussel sprouts. A salad after.”
“Make that two,” she told the waiter. “And please open a bottle of Merlot for us. You choose. It needs to breathe a bit.” She handed him the menus. “Our arteries may never forgive us,” she said to me.
“The salad will save our arteries,” I told her.
She put her glasses away. “Has it been exciting, your traveling life?”
I decided she wasn’t being deliberately sarcastic. “Well,” I said, “so far I haven’t climbed Mount Everest, like Jan Morris. Or roamed around Havana at night like Pico Iyer. That’s real travel writing.” She gave me a look. “A lot of my travel pieces have just been extended sidebars to wherever I’ve landed to interview a stage director, for example, or write about a particular production.”
She gave me a patient look.
“However, I was able – eventually – to write a colorful piece about my hot and humid luncheon cruise down the Brenta Canal in Venice. And what followed, which was the worst case of food poisoning I’ve ever experienced.”
“You don’t say.”
“One small shrimp, one dollop of tainted mayonnaise. A night from hell.”
“Electrifying.”
“Oh, it was tremendously electrifying, believe me. You should have been there.”
“I wasn’t asking for your professional history.”
“What, then. My personal history?”
Interestingly, we weren’t speaking with each other in tones of anger or irritation. Not at that point. It was more like affectionate bantering, as one would do with a friend with whom one had a long history.
“Good grief, I wouldn’t dare. Not now.”
We laughed a little.
“I’m a bit too curious, I guess,” she went on. “All right, just tell me one thing about yourself that might surprise me.”
“What would surprise you? I don’t know you well enough to take a guess.”
“Your book maybe?”
“Why would that surprise you?”
“It didn’t, to tell you the truth. In fact, I’d like to read it. But I was relieved to learn that you weren’t taking classes at the Stranieri because you didn’t have anything better to do.”
“My plan was to take one short course at the Stranieri in order to get past Monica DiBrufa to her brother. The course took a little longer than I was led to expect.”
“And where does that mission stand?”

“If you mean my interview with her brother, it’s stalled. But I don’t intend to give up.”

“Under ordinary circumstances, I might be able to help you. But I’ve got more than I can handle with that family as it is.”
“Monica is my immediate problem.”
“She’s intimidating. But she can be handled.” She finished her drink. “What was the title of your book?”
“Boarding Passes. Selections from my travel essays.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Glimpses of unusual corners of the world. Personal views. You’ll still find collections of them stashed in some long-haul British Air flight lockers. They used to give them away.”
“And your Perugia article?”
“That has turned into a much longer piece, much to my surprise. But I’ve finished it, I think.”

“Has that been an onerous task?”
“At first it was. But the city’s been growing on me. I lose my way, and then suddenly find myself on the brink of some breathtaking view. Or at the door of a tiny restaurant I probably would have overlooked. There aren’t any glorious piazzas there — or only one; no Campidoglios. But they do have a Raphael, and the other Piero, and a fascinating history of crazy families and bloody massacres in the night. The city itself is an opera.” I was tired of hearing myself talk. “Now I either need food or another drink.”
Elaine caught the waiter’s eye and the Merlot was quietly delivered and left to expand its lungs.
“Well, I wish I shared your enthusiasm,” she said. “You see its charms, and all I see is disaster.”
“When will that Merlot be ready to drink?”

“When the meal arrives. Soon, I have every hope.” She finished her Martini. “Is our Christmas celebration beginning to bore you?”
“I don’t think so. I’m not easily bored. There’s always something to speculate about.”
“Yes,” she said. “I believe being bored shows a lack of imagination.”
“Maybe. Or it could be just restlessness.”
“Tell me what doesn’t bore you, then.”
“You know, we could talk about you for a while. That would be a nice change. I don’t like to be interrogated. At least not at this length.”
“Maybe later. Humor me.”
I took a deep breath. “All right. What doesn’t bore me. Hotel bars. Arriving at new places. Certain familiar books. Breakfast in the cockpit of a beautiful sailboat. Shakespeare. Opera, when the house lights dim and everything gets breathlessly dark, and you know what’s coming. Looking down at the world from a window seat on a plane. Sitting on the Corso in Perugia with a caffe corretto, watching the passeggiata.“
She looked at me thoughtfully. “You know what all those things have in common?”
“What, possibly.”
“They’re solitary experiences. You don’t need anyone else to complete the picture.”
“I think I’d prefer to have someone with me in the sailboat.” I gave her a self-satisfied smile.
She didn’t return it. “I’ve watched you,” she said. “You wait for things to happen. You like to look. What in the world do you do with all you see? You can’t put it all in a magazine article.”
“You know what? We don’t know each other well enough to be having a conversation like this. I don’t like playing defense.” She was almost smiling. After a moment I added, “Yes, I like to look. I shouldn’t have to explain that.”
“It’s an excuse. Generally.”
“An excuse for what?”
“For not participating.”
“I participate, when I want to. I just choose my times.”
“My guess is that when you do, you don’t move forward, you move sideways.”
“What point are you trying to make? And don’t bully me,” I said. “You don’t know me at all.”
And then with a great whoosh of white linen and a soft clattering of plates, our dinners were delivered. By two waiters.
“Could you pour the wine please,” Elaine said politely to the older one.

Later we sat over the remains of our salads and finished the Merlot. The wine had been a complete waste, at least for me. I had quickly downed two glasses and those, on top of the vodka and my conversation with Elaine before dinner, had definitely affected my enthusiasm for the meal. We had exchanged comments about the beef, which was almost tender enough to cut with a fork, and the potatoes, which she said she’d never tasted before. Eventually a large, loud group of revelers was seated near us, and conversation of any sort became difficult.
She poured the final drop of wine into my glass. “Will you have dessert?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Absolutely not, thank you.” My head had begun to pound.
“Coffee, then.”
“Not even that.”
“All right. I’ll finish my wine and get the check.”
“Good idea.”
She sipped her wine with particular care, as if she were making it last as long as she could, and finally said, “If I’ve offended you, it wasn’t intentional.”
“You haven’t offended me.” 
The waiter passed, and she raised her arm.