The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany(40)

She leans in. “You’ve never felt like you were going to die if you didn’t get to hold him one more time.”

“No. Of course not.” My eyes shift from Poppy to Lucy. Lovely. I’m being tag-teamed. “Okay, I get your point. Yes, I may have missed some moments. But those are fleeting. You know, studies show sixty percent of marriages are unhappy.”

“So . . . what?” Lucy says. “You quit the game because you have only a four-in-ten chance of winning?”

“I didn’t quit. I chose not to play. Honestly, curse or no curse, I want no part of the dating world.”

“You’re completely checked out.” She turns to Poppy and talks as if I’m not here. “There’s this guy, Matt, who’s been in love with her since as long as I can remember.”

“That’s not true.”

“He’s actually kind of cute, if you’re not a teeth person. But Em just shuts him down.”

“Matt’s my best friend. I feel nothing, nothing for him except friendship.” Guilt rushes me. It feels treasonous, expressing this out loud. “Forget about me, Luce. Look at Aunt Poppy. She’s a successful, happy woman with a full life, who travels the world. And she’s never married.”

“And then there’s you,” Lucy says. “A single female whose entire life could fit into a thimble. A woman whose obituary will read: A lonely girl who spent her life trying to please her nonna. A woman who lived up to everyone’s expectations.”

I throw up my hands. “Whatever, Luce. I’m happy. I’m safe.” I bite my lip until I can no longer contain my silence. “Unlike you. I mean, my god, you may as well have a tattoo across your chest that reads Next, please.”

Lucy leans in, the vein in her forehead bulging. “I’d rather go down fighting than forfeit the game, like you have.”

“But I haven’t . . .”

“That’s right, Em. You haven’t. You haven’t done a damn thing to break this curse. Do you realize the pressure you’ve put on me? You’ve given up, and now it’s all on me.”

“I never asked you to break the curse, Lucy.”

“Of course not!” Lucy explodes. “The truth is, you like the curse. Admit it. It gives you a perfect excuse to be a frumpy old lady, with those butt-ugly bendable glasses and that lame-ass ponytail. It’s your pass from ever having to put yourself out there. So just spare me the bullshit.”

“Ah,” Poppy says, nodding her head. “You resent Emilia for being cowardly.”

I hitch up my admittedly dated but perfectly functional glasses. “Cowardly?”

“Yeah,” Lucy says. “That’s right, Poppy. Em is a coward. And never once did she stop to think of me.”

“Since when is it my responsibility to solve your problem?”

“Have you even once thought about Mimi? Or all the other future Fontana second daughters coming down the pike?”

I lift my shoulders. “Mimi will be just fine.”

“Well, I’m not!” Lucy’s face is red, and for the first time, I see pain along with the anger. “I’m on my own out here. And I’m drowning. It’s like you’re on this private island, comfortable and dry and boring as hell, watching as I flail and gasp and slip beneath the current.”

My cousin, who never cries, bats tears from her eyes. My throat tightens. Though I claim to deny the curse, might I have fallen prey to it, too? I actually like being single, and I’m perfectly content if that’s my status forever. But Lucy’s not. She’s overwrought with pressures and expectations and unfulfilled dreams. All her life she’s been made to believe that without a man, she’s worthless, incomplete.

In twenty-nine years, I’ve done nothing to try to break the curse. Until today, it never occurred to me that maybe I should.



* * *





On the way back to the hotel, we stop to look at necklaces behind a glass display. Lucy can’t decide between the gold chain or the silver, and eventually marches away with neither. She refuses to look at me. Her words—and Aunt Poppy’s, too—tag along like someone’s unwanted kid sister. Maybe I’m still jet-lagged, or homesick, or in mourning over Poppy’s illness, because despite being in this magical place called Venice, nothing feels right. Instead, the accusation echoes in my head. Em is a coward.

That night, after I’ve picked at my baccalà mantecato—a creamy mousse made of dried cod, served with polenta—we return to the hotel. It’s eleven o’clock and I’m ready to climb into bed and write a couple of pages. But Lucy, who drank nearly the entire carafe of wine with dinner, has come to life.

“Let’s go out,” she says, finally looking at me when she speaks. She throws up her arms and does a little dance.

I bust my own move by pulling my nightshirt over my head. “Seriously? Don’t you sleep?”

“C’mon. Just one drink. We’ll go downstairs to the hotel bar.”

“Maybe tomorrow,” I say, praying she’ll forget the promise twenty-four hours from now.

Lucy opens her mouth, as if she’s about to say something. But she doesn’t.

I’m in the bathroom when I hear the hotel door open, then close. I step into the room, lathering my face.