The Villa(16)

The song shifts into its chorus, and now I know the song. “Golden Chain.”

“My mom had this album,” I say, and I have an image of her humming in the kitchen as Lara Larchmont sang in the background.

“Everyone’s mom had this album,” Chess answers with a wave of one arm. “Even my mom, and you know she’s allergic to things like ‘art’ and ‘feelings.’”

I haven’t seen Chess’s mom, Nanci, in ages. I doubt Chess has either. They were never close—and, trust me, once Things My Mama Never Taught Me came out, any chance of them ever being close was shot to hell. But even when we were kids, Chess spent more time at my house than she did at her own. I’d never minded; growing up as the only girl in a house with three brothers meant I liked having someone around who was always on my side, someone to share secrets and whispers with.

And Chess seemed to thrive on the cheerful chaos of my house. It was just her and her mom in their duplex, and the few times I spent the night, I was always struck by how quiet it was, how Nanci would just disappear into her bedroom, leaving me and Chess with the run of the place.

It feels a little like one of those nights now, the two of us alone in this quiet house. But instead of the sad little duplex with its peeling linoleum and secondhand furniture, we’re in a villa, an Italian villa Chess was able to rent, because despite her kind of dysfunctional and sad childhood, she’s done … this. All of this.

Sometimes I forget just how impressive that is.

“I thought we should fully embrace the vibe, you know?” Chess says now, smiling in the candlelight. “Especially on the first night.”

Chess opens the limoncello, pouring the thick, sunny liquid into the tiny glasses and handing me one. I know I should probably pass—I’m already drunk—but when in Italy, right? So I tip it back, the liquor bright and almost painfully sweet.

Picking up her own glass, Chess flops on the floor, although “flop” isn’t an elegant enough word to describe how she folds up her long limbs, then stretches them out again, her cheek resting in her palm as she looks at me.

“You can talk about the murder thing if you want to,” she tells me. “I mean, I did bring in the album, it’s now fair game.”

I wave her off, my head swimming from the wine and jet lag still clouding the edges of my brain. “No. No murder talk in the creepy room.”

Chess lifts her glass in acknowledgment, then realizes it’s empty. Reaching for the limoncello, she glances over her shoulder at me.

“So, are you feeling any good writing vibes in the house? Any idea what you might want to dive into tomorrow?”

All I’m going to want to dive into tomorrow is the pool, probably. Instead, I say, “Not really sure yet. I mean, I need to finish the next Petal Bloom. I mean, I really need to finish it.”

“It’s pretty late, huh?” Chess asks. As a fellow writer, she gets exactly why the situation is so stressful—which is both a relief, and annoying. I bet Chess has never missed a deadline in her life. Plus, even if she did, it would be no big deal to her financially. But I actually need the money that comes along with delivering this manuscript, and I needed it basically yesterday.

When Matt decided to play hardball, I realized I needed an aggressive lawyer, and those, it turns out, are not nearly as cheap as Your Dad’s Friend Ben from the Golf Club.

“It is,” I say to Chess now, “but everyone understands. The divorce, being sick…” I trail off. I can’t bring myself to tell her the truth, that even if my editor and agent have been understanding, my checking account is less so. Chess resituates herself on the floor, her second shot of limoncello already gone.

“Do you remember that book we were going to write together? Back in college?”

It’s the first time she’s brought up the Book in ages, and I lean back in my chair, arms draped over the sides.

“Why didn’t we do that?” she continues, screwing up her face.

Because you flaked out, I think, but don’t say. Like you always do.

That isn’t fair, though. Chess’s flakiness is actually highly subjective. If it’s something she really cares about, like her own books, she’s as dedicated and focused as anyone could ever be. But with anything else, there’s a big chance she’ll just abandon it the second something newer and shinier catches her eye.

It took me a few years into our friendship to recognize the pattern. But when I was fifteen, I was sitting at the kitchen table with my mom, crying my eyes out because Chess was supposed to hang out with me on Halloween, and had instead ditched me to go to a party with her new boyfriend. It wasn’t the first time she’d done this kind of thing, and it wouldn’t be the last, but this was the first time I’d ever really, truly thought about ending our friendship.

My mom sat across from me, a mug of coffee at her elbow, and sighed, reaching over to take my hand.

“Baby,” she said, her Southern accent thick, “here’s the thing. This is who Jessica is. It’s who she’s always going to be. Now, you can either accept that or you can decide that this kind of thing is a deal breaker for you, but what you can’t do is keep getting upset over the same thing. She’s never gonna not do this kind of shit.”

I wasn’t sure if I’d ever heard my mom deliberately curse before, and that, more than anything else, told me how serious she was.