One Italian Summer(19)

My parents only go to two restaurants regularly, and they’re both in Beverly Hills: Craig’s and Porta Via. They get the same four entrées. My father is a creature of habit. Rarely and occasionally my mother will get him to try something outside his comfort zone—Eveleigh in West Hollywood, Perch downtown.

The waiter appears, and Remo shakes his hand warmly. “Buongiorno, signore.”

“Buongiorno,” Carol says. She takes a long swig of water and wrings out her hair onto the sandy floor.

Remo begins ordering swiftly in Italian. I look to Carol.

“Everything will be delicious,” she says. “Don’t worry. Remo brought me here last week, and it is best to just go with it.”

I’ve never heard my mother use the phrase just go with it, not once.

“Are you guys…” I start, but Carol answers before I can finish.

“Friends, yes?” she says. “He’s taken me under his wing and shown me Positano from a local’s perspective.” She leans across the table conspiratorially. “But he is very handsome.”

I look to Remo. He is still immersed in conversation. “Um, yes.”

“So what brings you to Positano, Katy?” my mother asks. “Besides the obvious.”

“And what’s that?”

“Italy,” she says, winking at me.

A bottle of rosé and glasses show up, and Remo pours for us, turning back to the table, to the conversation.

“It’s a beautiful place, no?” Remo says.

I nod. I’m not sure what to say. My mother died and I don’t know what to do with my life anymore, so I left my husband and came here to Italy.

Oh yeah and by the way, you’re her.

“I needed a break,” I say, truthfully. My mother smiles; Remo refills his water glass.

“Well, I’ll drink to your break,” she says.

We clink, and the liquid goes down crisp and sweet and smooth.

I flash on the last normal lunch I had with my mother. It was a warm December day, and we had just done some shopping at the Grove in West Hollywood. She wanted to try a new place and sit outside with me, so we settled on a vegan Mexican restaurant called Gracias Madre on Melrose. They have an outdoor patio and exceptional guacamole.

“Should we have a glass of wine?” she asked when we sat down.

My mother wasn’t a daytime drinker. She’d have half a glass of wine if we were pouring, nothing if we weren’t. I’d seen her order a martini at a late lunch once in my life, at a New York bar after a Broadway production of Jersey Boys.

I wanted to ask if she was sure. She was two months into the cancer, into treatment. We hadn’t yet moved onto the dire stuff, though. It was a concoction of pills that sometimes left her exhausted but hadn’t changed her face or her hair. You wouldn’t know anything was wrong to look at her.

“Yes,” I said. “Let’s do it.”

We got two glasses of Sancerre, and the waiter poured at the table. She tasted.

“Delicious,” she said.

I remember she was wearing a short-sleeved orange cashmere sweater and brown plaid trousers. She had on brown loafers and a handkerchief tied around her Longchamp shopper.

“Do you think we should go back for the skirt from J.Crew?” she asked me.

It was velvet and short, with a sparkle at the hem. Cute but overpriced, we had ultimately decided. And the fabric wasn’t as good as she wanted it to be—fast fashion never was. And it made her furious that nothing was ever lined. I was surprised she brought it back up now. My mother didn’t have second thoughts too often.

“I think it’s fine,” I said.

She smiled. “It would be pretty with a black T-shirt.”

“I have enough skirts.”

“Still,” she said. “I think we should get it.”

I remember she downed her glass of wine quickly. And I remember thinking that even though we had been granted this day, this time—shopping, lunch, midday wine—so buoyant and joyful—the actual evidence of her sickness was the indulgence itself.

But sitting here with her now—thirty years earlier, on the other side of the world—watching her drink chilled rosé like it’s water—I think that maybe there were parts of her I never made an effort to see. Parts of her that just wanted to drink outside in the sunshine on a Wednesday. And go back for skirts, just because.

Lunch is good, but Il Tridente at Hotel Poseidon is better. There is grilled Halloumi on a bed of lettuce, calamari, caprese, and lots of wine.

“Remo took me to Capri last weekend,” my mother says. “It’s overrated, in my opinion. Positano is far more beautiful. More authentic, too. It feels far more connected to the Italian culture here than it does there.”

Remo shakes his head. “Capri is nice on the water. On the land, less.”

My parents and I took a trip to London when I was twelve years old. We stayed near Westminster, saw a production of Wicked, and rode the London Eye. That’s as close to a European vacation as I’ve ever gotten.

“It is a hard place to get to, and a hard place to leave, but a very easy place to stay,” my mother says. “I came for the first time with my parents when I was a little girl, and I never forgot it.”

I’m not sure I knew about that trip. There’s so much I never asked. And there is so much I want to know, now.