Tourist Attraction

To find true love in Rome—what could be more romantic? Like Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck zipping around on a Vespa in the classic fifties movie Roman Holiday. Visiting the Vatican, the Forum, the Colosseum. It was a dream of mine, ever since my girlfriends and I began planning a three-week tour through Europe. I was 34 years old, and I’d never even left North America!

- Imelda Touchet

Then, crack! I slipped on some Newfoundland winter ice and broke my arm. “I can’t believe my bad luck,” I moaned to a friend.

“Maybe there’s a reason you weren’t supposed to go on this trip,” she said.

A year went by. I got over my disappointment. I didn’t need a Roman backdrop to find true love, after all. I knew just what I was looking for in a husband: a gentle, spiritual man who’d never been married. Someone with a job that gave back to others— a teacher, for instance. I hadn’t met him yet, but I’d know him when I did.

For some reason, that spring I felt like calling Marion, an old friend I hadn’t spoken to in ages. “Imelda! So glad to hear from you,” she said. “A group of us is going to Rome for a convention. Can you come with us?”