Midnight Angels by Lorenzo Carcaterra

and blend in with one of the groups heading either in or out of the halls.”
    “You knew I would be coming with you before you sat down,” Marco said, a smile spreading across his face.
    Kate returned the smile.
    “What makes you so certain there aren’t any security cameras in the sealed-off area of the corridor?” he asked.
    Kate lost the smile and wrinkled her brow, leaned in closer to Marco and lowered her voice. “Don’t get mad, okay?” she said.
    “That means you don’t know if there are cameras in there or not,” he said. “Dio mio , Kate. I will never live long enough to understand someone like you.”
    “There’s no reason to have any security cameras in that part of the corridor,” she said. “It’s been sealed off since Michelangelo was alive . There are people who have lived their entire lives in this city who don’t even know it’s there. It’s safely hidden in plain sight. As far as any of the guards are concerned, that section of the corridor might as well be invisible.”
    “If that’s true—and I don’t doubt you,” Marco said, “then in all likelihood it has not been as well maintained as the rest of the corridor. It could have been used as storage space by the maintenance crews.”
    “There’s only one way for us to know for sure,” Kate said, “and that’s to make our way in there and see for ourselves.”
    A middle-aged woman in a light blue summer dress, draped around a body that was still shapely enough to draw stares, stood at their table, a box of biscotti cradled in her arms. “These are for you,” she said, placing the box on Kate’s end of the table, “to enjoy late at night, while you study.”
    “Grazie , signora,” Kate said, glancing up at the woman’s warm eyes and the dark hair that ran long down the sides of an unlined face and along the nape of her neck.
    “Per niente,” the woman said with a wave and a smile, bustling off to a corner table to make small talk with an elderly couple.
    “It’s going to be hard for me to one day have to leave this city,” Kate said. “I already feel as if I could live the rest of my life here.”
    “Most Americans do,” Marco said. “And some Florentines, too, I would imagine.”
    “But not you,” she said. “Why is that, Marco?”
    “I love the Italian way of life,” he said. “The strength of family, the ability to nurture our souls as much as we do our wallets, is the way we should all view our lives. There would be far fewer wars if we did, that’s for certain.”
    “But you see negatives to this life as well,” Kate said.
    “Yes,” he said. “They are not negatives to all of us, but to me they seem limiting.”
    “How?”
    “Well, for example, in America it is assumed that anyone can achieve anything that he or she sets out to do,” Marco said. “You’re pretty much told that from cradle to grave. And in your hearts, whether it’s true or misguided, you embrace the idea, no matter how rich or poor you may be. That’s not the case in my country.”
    “You don’t think you can make any of your dreams come true?” Kate asked. “What would stop you?”
    “Of course I believe I can achieve what I set out to do,” he said. “But like many Italians my age, I approach my dreams with a more realistic eye. Maybe we here in Italy learn early on not to set our sights too high. We are taught a simpler way to dream. And for many that’s more than enough.”
    “But not for you,” she said.
    Marco nodded. “In so many ways,” he said, “I’m so much more of an American than you are, maybe because I have seen a lot more television. Or perhaps it’s just something that’s rubbed off on me, living in a city that has so many American visitors. I seem to want more than what my other Italian friends want, and I’m not talking just about money. I want many of the things that are treated as nothing more than second nature to successful Americans and, for whatever reasons, are seen as beyond the