A Place in the Sun(59)

I walked through the streets, dipping into shops that seemed interesting. There was a stationery shop with old calligraphy pens and parchment paper. I snatched up a few postcards and dawdled at a café, writing to my brother and sister-in-law. I hadn’t started to miss my family until that moment. They’d have known how to comfort me…well, perhaps not, but at the very least, they would have distracted me with their own problems. I wrote to them and told them how much I loved Italy, how I’d choose never to leave if I didn’t have to. I wrote that I intended to explore other destinations soon, but for right now, Vernazza felt like home.

It was a lie. Vernazza didn’t feel like home. Gianluca felt like home. Our relationship, the ease and beauty of it was the comfort I craved. He was so lovely. I thought back to a perfect day a few weeks earlier and realized there had been nothing extraordinary about it. We’d been painting one of the upstairs bedrooms, working together. Gianluca would come up behind me and touch up the patches of wall I’d been working on, never pestering me about my sloppy technique. He swore I was a brilliant painter—the Michelangelo of Vernazzan bed and breakfasts. He never sought out conflict over inconsequential things like painting plaster walls. Instead, he encouraged me and said I could make a real job of it if I wanted to.

I didn’t want to be a painter and I told him so. He grinned and wrapped his arms around my waist, tugging me against his chest.

“That’s good, because you’re pretty shite at it.”

I laughed. “For all you know, I’ve just been making intentional errors so you feel as if you’re contributing.”

He squeezed my hips and spun me around, bending low to kiss me softly. “Fair point. So let’s do something where we both contribute.”

With a soft smirk, he dragged me down to the floor of that abandoned bedroom and stripped off my stained painting clothes. The sounds of the square—laughter and chatter and clinking glasses—filtered up through the open window and we added a chorus of our own.



…



Gianluca hadn’t come round Il Mare since our confrontation. Two excruciatingly long weeks and still no sign of him. His tools were littered around the place, but I sidestepped them, careful not to dwell on his presence in the building for too long. It wasn’t a very efficient use of time, to cry and mope around like the world was ending. I kept busy, always on the move. I went to sleep early, cutting my days short so I’d have less time to dwell on the twisted feeling in my stomach.

I’d go for afternoon swims in the sea, stopping only when my arms and legs became too exhausted to move. It was like I was trying to sweat the sadness out of me. Afterward, I’d flop onto my back and float in the waves, closing my eyes to the Italian sun and letting it warm me from above. Out there, I couldn’t tell if it was tears or the sea water running down my cheeks, and neither could anyone else.

I was heading home from one of those swims when Katerina caught up with me. She’d been lingering outside Il Mare, trying to catch me. I hadn’t eaten much and I knew I’d have to force down a decent dinner or I’d pass out from all the exertion. I tried to tell Katerina that, but she insisted she had a solution. We were going to meet up with friends at a bar and then go for a proper dinner. Have a real “fun night out”.

Italians all seemed to believe that a few drinks and a good meal would cure any ill. Fat chance.

I tried to talk her out of it, insisting that I was too tired to get tarted up, but she was deaf to my excuses. She dragged me inside and all but carted me into the shower. When I’d finished rinsing off with my favorite lavender-scented body wash and shampoo, she plopped me down in front of my small vanity and started to blow dry my hair. I sat in silence, content to let her do what she wanted.

When she finished, my brown hair was long, straight, and silky. Even in my sad haze, I thought it looked nice, and I told her so.

“And I’m not even finished!”

She produced a red dress from her bag and tossed it at me.

“Put that on and then I’ll do your makeup.”

The only thing harder than sitting there and allowing Katerina to make me over was the idea of fending her off. I had no energy for it. I was drained and numb. If she thought the red dress made my legs go on for days and cinched my waist to nothing, that was nice, but it seemed like mowing your lawn during the apocalypse—what did it really matter?

The group had decided on a bar in Corniglia since they were having drink specials. I hated that I’d have to catch the train to get home instead of just walking the short distance back from the bars in Vernazza.

“I know it’s a little farther, but it’ll be better. Busy and full of locals and tourists. Tons of happy people to distract you from—c’mon it’ll be fun!”

She didn’t say his name, like she was scared I would lapse into a fit of tears over the mere mention of him.

“Gianluca,” I said. “He’s not Voldemort, you can say his name. It’s not a big deal.”

She smiled ruefully, not quite believing me. “Right, okay. Well this place will be so packed, you won’t even remember him!”

She wasn’t lying. Even before we’d turned down the narrow street toward the bar, noise spilled out into the quiet night. It was tucked on the bottom floor of a three-story building, hardly the size of the common room back at Il Mare.