The Villa(17)

It had been easier after that, being friends with Chess, and as we sit in this beautiful candlelit room in this beautiful Italian villa, I’m very glad I didn’t write her off back then.

“We just got bored,” I tell Chess now. A half-truth, but it’s as good as any. “And it was college, you know? We had a million other distractions.”

“Maybe we should try again while we’re here,” Chess suggests, and I stare at her, trying to figure out if she’s serious.

“Given that I write cozy mysteries and you write self-help, I’m not really sure what that would look like,” I tell her. “‘Become your best self by committing some light murder in the apple orchard.’”

She laughs. “No, I mean we should resurrect the book we started writing back then. The novel about the girls at boarding school together.”

I pour another shot of limoncello so that I don’t have to answer right away.

“Think about it,” she says, warming to the idea. “It was one thing to write that story when we were teenage girls ourselves, but now? With life experience and shit? We could really do something there, Em.”

I think about those nights in Chess’s dorm room or the library at UNC, our heads together, each of us throwing out ideas that the other would immediately respond to. We were good at that kind of creative partnership, the whole “Yes, and!” thing, but hours of plotting and talking and gassing each other up didn’t actually result in a book.

Which was maybe for the best.

“Can we be honest and admit that the idea was kind of dumb?” I say, and she widens her eyes in mock outrage.

“Dumb? Dumb? Um, it had a brilliant title, if you’ll recall.”

I giggle. “Chess, you wanted to call it Green. Just that, nothing else. Green. As in ‘not easy being.’”

“Because of the double meaning!” she insists. “Their uniforms were green, and they were green in the … you know, metaphorical sense. Just starting out and all.”

I laugh even harder, nearly spilling my drink as I go to set it down.

“Can you seriously not hear how dumb that sounds?”

She pauses, pours another glass.

And then, with a nod of her head, gives in. “Okay, it was really dumb. But!” She reaches out and slaps my knee. “The idea of us writing something together while we’re here isn’t. So, think about it, Em. Promise?”

I know better than to get my hopes up even if the idea of working on something that isn’t Petal Bloom sends little fizzy sparks of excitement racing through me along with all that alcohol. In the morning, Chess will forget we even had this conversation, or she’ll get absorbed in whatever “Girl, Straighten Your Hair!”–type manifesto she needs to write next, but for now, in this perfect little room, I give in.

“Promise.”

Sun rising over the water/clouds floating so high

A place where I can settle/a home without goodbye

Have I searched for this too long?/Have I finally lost my way?

Or is this the beginning/of a new and brighter day?

“Dawn,”Lara Larchmont, from the album Aestas (1977)





MARI, 1974—ORVIETO


It’s strange, the three of them once again driving through the Italian countryside.

They have a nicer car this time, courtesy of Noel Gordon, who sent Pierce some cash before they left. Apparently, Lara hadn’t been exaggerating when she said that Noel was interested in Pierce and his music, and the letters he and Pierce had sent back and forth had quickly been full of the kind of easy affection and camaraderie that usually characterizes old friends.

Not only that, Noel had told Pierce that he had some studio time already booked in London once the summer was over. He had an album that was massively overdue, and the trip to Italy was something of a last-ditch effort to get some songs ready.

That had made something in Mari’s chest feel less tight about the entire endeavor. The fact that there was a goal in place, not just an endless stream of parties—plus, a real chance for Pierce to break through to a new level at Noel’s side. Now, as she sits in the passenger seat, the warm breeze blowing in through the window, Mari tilts her head back to gaze up at the sky and breathes in deep.

It’s a bright, cloudless blue that feels uniquely Italian, and the sun is already turning the skin of her forearm a slight peach, bringing up freckles that Pierce will later trace with one delicate finger, telling her she has constellations written on her.

Mari pulls her arm back in from the window, twisting around in her seat to look at Lara.

She’d fallen asleep earlier, but she’s awake now, her dark eyes wide, taking everything in.

Mari remembers that from their last trip, too. Lara always seemed to be watching, waiting, afraid to miss one single second, and now, as they begin climbing the steep road up to Orvieto, she leans forward, as excited as a little kid.

“Look at it!” she breathes, fingers clutching the back of Mari’s seat.

The town is worthy of the reaction. Set high on a hill, Orvieto is surrounded by a massive wall and in the city center itself, there’s a cathedral, its spires reaching into all that blue.

Mari wonders if they’ll be able to see it from the house.

Pierce lays a hand on her knee, shaking her leg. “Happy, darling?” he asks, looking over at her, and Mari smiles back, nodding.