One Italian Summer(62)

“Would you like to have a drink?” I ask Carol.

Carol looks from Nika to me. “Sure,” she says. She hands off the package. “There’s a little spot up the way,” she says. “It’s a good place to sit. I’ll show you if you haven’t been.”

“Great,” I say.

We wave goodbye to Nika, and I follow Carol out of the hotel. No more than forty paces up, we come to an outside restaurant on the left-hand side of the road. It’s strung up with ivy and flowers and has a spectacular view of the water. There are only four tables: it’s like sitting in your own private gazebo overlooking the sea.

We sit.

Carol orders an Aperol and soda.

“Can I have a coffee?” I ask the server.

“Long night?” Carol asks.

“You could say that.”

She takes out a pack of cigarettes, shakes one into her hand.

“You really shouldn’t smoke,” I say. “That stuff kills.”

“You’re probably right.”

“I know I am.”

Carol tucks the pack back into her bag. “You know, for someone who considers herself to be a wallflower, you can be quite bossy.”

I smile. “Working on it.”

Carol grins back at me. “So Adam,” she says. “That’s the guy, right?”

I nod.

“He’s handsome,” she says. She looks off behind my shoulder, like she wants to say something else.

“What?”

“I don’t think I’m going to get the job. Adam said something about how they want to keep the aesthetic the same. I just didn’t feel like they were sold, if they even know what they want to do.” She pauses, and I feel the air in my chest hover. “I’d really like to design something someday, you know?”

I think about Addy Eisenberg’s Malibu home, the Monteros’ ranch in Montecito. Our Brentwood house. All remarkable achievements. All we should have celebrated more, with her, when we had the chance.

“You will,” I say. “I promise you will. I think you are enormously talented.”

“Thank you.” She shakes her head. “Adam isn’t who I would picture for you,” she says.

I laugh. “Oh?”

“No way.”

“Okay,” I say. “What would you imagine for me?”

Carol grins. She likes the question. “Someone kind,” she says, “of course. Someone who can let you shine. Someone who is cozy and warm. Someone who will look after you. He’d have brown hair, be a little dorky, but in that handsome way, you know. Clark Kent and all that. Maybe glasses.” She pauses. “Someone who thinks he won the lottery, because he did.”

I feel my eyes grow heavy. In a moment they are filled with tears.

“Carol,” I say. It comes out in a whisper. “I need to apologize to you.”

“For what?” she asks. She is unconcerned, unconvinced.

“For telling you to go home,” I say. “I’ve realized something, and it’s important that I say this to you. It’s important that you know.”

“Okay,” she says. “I’m listening.”

“It’s not my choice whether you stay or go. I can’t make you do that. It’s no one’s actually. Not Da—er, your husband’s, and not even your little girl’s.”

I close my eyes, willing them to dry. If even a single tear falls, I know the dam will break. Not now. “You did your best. You’re doing your best. Whatever happens now…” I exhale; I clear my throat. “I realized no one can tell you to go home, because no one can tell me to go home, either. It’s your choice, just like it’s mine.”

Carol’s eyes find mine. She looks at me for a long beat. And in that gaze I see it all—birthdays and dinners and shopping trips. Mornings spent watching soap operas in her bed. Nights on the phone. Care packages mailed to New York City. Scraped elbows and fevers and her voice, always her voice. Everything is going to be all right. You’re okay. I’ve got you.

Carol nods. It’s almost imperceptible.

“There is a great life waiting for you at home. It’s beautiful and hard and joyful and real. It will be messy and you’ll get it wrong sometimes. You should be more honest when you do—it will help her, your daughter. She doesn’t need you to be perfect; she just needs you to be you. That life is good, Carol, but it may not be the one you want.”

I rub the back of my hand over my eyes.

“Katy,” Carol says. She leans forward, all the way. “That thing you said last night to me. About it being you.”

I nod.

“Is it true?” she asks. “Did I leave you?”

I see her here, seated across from me. I see her in the marina, in the water, on the Path of the Gods. I see her in her bed in Brentwood. I see her everywhere.

“No,” I say. “No, you never did.”





Chapter Twenty-Nine


When I get back to the hotel, it is evening. I feel exhausted, wrung out. I go upstairs. The doors are drawn. I open them. The evening is turning over—day to night. Shops are closing, and restaurants are reemerging from their afternoon downtime. There is a quiet hum to the town.