One Italian Summer(34)

“Ah!” she says. “Water, praise you.” She downs it. “I was just telling Remo about dinner.”

I point to my distended stomach. “So good.”

Remo laughs. “Food is for eating,” he says. “And music for dancing.”

He takes Carol’s hand and leads her away from the bar to the center of the room, through the gathered drinkers. A few couples are locked together. Two men who look to be no more than eighteen bob their shoulders to the music. Remo twirls Carol and then lets go, leaving her to spin.

The music kicks up, a remake of an eighties pop song. It gets louder. I watch Carol, eyes closed, moving to the rhythm.

I make my way to her. I take her hand. I begin to move to the beat, not letting go of her fingers. We sway and jump and dance together, like that. It feels like we’re the only two people on the dance floor. It feels like we’re the only two people in the world. Two young women having the time of their life on the Italian shore.

For the first time since she died—maybe long before that—I feel totally free. Not weighed down by any decisions I’ve already made and not constrained by what’s to come. I am fully and completely here. Sweat drenched, wine drunk, present.

“Remo is so into you!” I call when he goes to get a refill on drinks. Carol crushes a bill into his hand before he departs.

“I insist,” she says.

“No, he’s not,” she says. She brushes me off. “I told you. We’re friends.”

“Trust me,” I say. “He is. Why wouldn’t he be?”

Carol shakes her head. “You’re drunk.”

“Maybe,” I say. “But why not? He’s very cute.” I look over to where Remo, head back, laughing, is at the bar. “You won’t be here forever.”

Carol looks at me, and there is a severity to her gaze that wasn’t there a moment before. I suddenly feel myself struggle to be sober. “I can’t do that,” she says.

“Okay,” I say. “It’s just that he’s hot and you’re here.”

And then she reaches into her bag and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. She fishes inside for one, lights it, and pulls. It all happens in the span of a second. So quickly I can barely compute it. Here is my mother, in Italy, smoking.

“Do you want?” she asks me, exhaling a cloud.

“No,” I say.

She shrugs, pulls again, and then I see her watching Remo. “I think you should,” she says.

“I don’t smoke.”

She rolls her eyes. “Sleep with Remo, I mean. If anyone should, it should be you.”

“He’s not my type,” I say quickly.

Carol looks amused. “You’re kidding.”

“I’m not,” I say.

“So who is?”

All at once, Adam’s image flashes in my head. He’s dressed like he was today. In a gray T-shirt and board shorts and then, nothing at all.

“You’re blushing,” Carol says.

“How can you tell? It’s dark and it’s a thousand degrees in here.”

Carol smiles. “Fine,” she says. “But then I’m allowed to have secrets, too.”





Chapter Sixteen


I get back to the hotel after midnight. Carol drops me off at the entryway, clinging to me. We’re both drunk, and I’m so sweaty I feel like I’ve just stepped out of a pool. The hike back up the hill from town coupled with some… vodka shots? tequila? both?… have made me feel like alcohol soup. It feels like I’ve been up for days, years.

“I’ll see you tomorrow!” she calls. “Or today!”

She spins me around once, and then she’s taking off up the road.

“Good night,” I call after her.

I trip inside and up the stairs. No one is at the desk, and there are no bottles of water out. I’m dehydrating by the millisecond.

I stumble out to the dining terrace and then walk around to the pool. The bar window is open, but there’s no one around. I peer close, and then I see cases of bottled water, right there under the sink.

The window isn’t large, but it’s wide enough to fit my torso through. I shimmy my body forward, and then lean down reaching, and then…

“What are you doing?”

I lift myself up and jump back to see Adam standing no more than three feet from me.

“Jesus, you scared me.”

“Sorry,” he says. “But the question stands.”

“I need those water bottles,” I say, gesturing inside the bar window.

Adam’s face changes from curiosity to amusement. “Are you drunk?”

“No!” I say. I blow some air out of my lips. It tastes like vodka. “Kind of. Definitely yes.”

“Ha,” he says. “Stand back, I’ll get you the water, Spider-Woman.”

I expect him to do a running jump up onto the counter and then use his body as a seesaw, but instead he just walks through the sliding glass doors leading inside, and a moment later I see him in the window, under the sink, getting the bottles.

“I didn’t think of that,” I tell him.

“I’m aware,” he says.

He returns with four in hand. I twist the top off one and down it in four large gulps.