Page 11

Sarah

Saturday, July 18, 1992

Capri

“Your swimsuit’s on inside out,” Marcus said.

Sarah kept her eyes closed behind her sunglasses and lifted her face to the sun. They were lying on green-and-white-striped chaise longues around the pool. Patches of shade, cast by the fringed umbrellas, moved glacially across the stone deck.

“Are you really that hungover?” he pushed.

“Not any more than you,” Sarah said. She opened her eyes and reached for the plate next to her, but it was already picked clean. The fruit and pastries long gone. Only coffee grounds remained at the bottom of her white cup, but she tipped it back anyway, licked at the grains.

She was that hungover. He was, too; they all were. Capri was like that—too many drinks, too many drugs, mornings that somehow slipped into afternoons. It was worse now, knowing this would be her last time.

She squinted into the sun—it had to be noon. Naomi slid into the pool, paddled for the far edge, as if their voices were too loud for her. Her long hair floated behind her. The cup in Sarah’s hand hit the table. It was an accident, but she liked how sharp it sounded, the ceramic against the marble.

“Renata, do you think we could get another pitcher of water and more coffee?” Richard asked from the table next to her.

“Certo, Signore Lingate,” Renata replied.

“Do you want anything?”

Sarah didn’t respond to her husband’s question. He repeated himself, his impatience pushing through the second time.

“Sarah?” he said.

It sounded like a command. It always did these days. It hadn’t started like that. She could still remember the way he used to whisper to her during performances, his lips brushing her ear. Even now, thinking about it elicited the same physical response, the same warmth flushing up her spine.

“Yes?” she said, lifting her sunglasses and looking at her husband. “Were you talking to me?” She could play, too. Keep it nice.

“Of course I’m talking to you,” he said. “Who else would I be talking to?”

Sarah shrugged, slipped the sunglasses back down. “I have everything I need. Thank you.”

It was so easy for him to offer the little things— Can I get you anything? Do you need help? Should I wait? —when he had taken away something so big.

Although she was desperate for another coffee, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of asking. Instead, she turned her attention to the tireless housekeeper and said: “Grazie, Renata. Come sta Ciro?”

“ Meraviglioso, thank you,” she replied.

“He’s three now, isn’t he?”

“Sì, signora.”

“He and Helen should play together soon.”

“Yes,” Renata said, picking up a few of the empty plates, “I would love that. He would love that.”

During the years that Sarah had been coming to the villa with Richard, she and Renata had grown close. They were both pregnant at the same time, both young mothers. Both navigating an unfamiliar environment— money.

Renata had left Ciro’s father two months before the baby arrived, and Sarah wondered if Renata knew what a blessing that might have been.

“Next year,” Sarah said. It was almost a whisper. But she could see them, their two small children, tottering around the garden, picking up rocks and watching for lizards. She didn’t mind lying to the others, but she hated lying to Renata.

Sarah watched Renata make her way across the lawn and into the kitchen, while Marcus read the Financial Times and Richard a novel. Naomi swam up to where they were sitting and crossed her long arms on the pool deck, freckled and pale. They couldn’t have been more different—Sarah, dirty blond and very tan, and Naomi, petite, with dark hair and eyes, her skin like milk.

“Do you really think bringing a four-year-old to Capri is a good idea?” Naomi said.

It was Sarah’s first time back on the island since Helen’s birth, and despite enjoying herself, Sarah missed her daughter so much it felt like a low-grade fever. An illness she couldn’t shake off. She wouldn’t return to the island without her. Helen would love the villa and its balconies and birds; she would love the pool and the fruit Renata brought in each morning. She would love playing with Ciro.

“It would be a different kind of trip,” Sarah said.

She didn’t want to point out that Naomi, who had never been interested in motherhood, might not understand.

“But if you have another,” Naomi said, “you couldn’t really bring an infant.”

The trip had been too complicated, the sleep too elusive, to bring Helen before. But there wouldn’t be another baby. And if she had been paying attention, Naomi would know this, too.

But Naomi had never been good with change. She preferred to paper over the cracks. She and Marcus had met in high school, and when Sarah looked at the framed photos that lined the bookshelves of their house, she noticed that Naomi’s hair was still the same length, her lips still the same coral color, her preference for silk scarves—all of it the same.

“Maybe you and Marcus should give parenthood a chance,” Richard said.

“She doesn’t want to share me. Isn’t that right, Nom?” Marcus looked up from his paper and smiled at Naomi.

“It’s true,” she said. “I would be terribly jealous of a baby.”

Richard was always complaining that Marcus didn’t have children. How can he understand adult responsibilities, he liked to say, when he’s never had to give something up? Richard was angry his brother wouldn’t cede him this win, wouldn’t admit that Richard becoming a father made them equal. Finally. Richard was responsible now. Couldn’t Marcus see that?

Sarah had always found it strange that Marcus, who was otherwise so committed to the stewardship of the family name, was so uninterested in producing another generation. Perhaps it was a reaction to their father’s overinvestment in it. It’s important to have boys! You must not stop until you have boys! And more than one! Two, at least. That’s what Richard’s father had said to her when they told him she was pregnant. But then, he didn’t live long enough to see the birth.

Without looking up from his novel, Richard licked his finger and turned the page. “Children are hard,” he said, setting the book in his lap. “I’m not sure you two are up for sacrifice. And it’s not that I don’t love Helen. God, I love Helen. But I’ve been tired for three years.”

At this, Sarah resisted the urge to laugh.

“You’re tired?” she asked. The question, innocent.

“Of course,” he replied.

It felt like he was daring her to become upset. So that Marcus and Naomi could see it. I told you. She’s so problematic, my wife.

“You don’t have a monopoly,” he continued, “on being the parent who gets to be tired.”

“You’re right,” she said. “It must be so exhausting trying to find the time to meet friends for coffee. Or funding film projects that never happen. Or rewriting the same short story for the thirtieth time. Or—”

“Everyone gets to be tired when they have a young child,” Marcus said, folding his paper with what felt like finality.

But Sarah didn’t want him to keep the peace.

“I’m tired!” she said, pointing a finger at her chest, her voice hitching despite her best efforts. “I’m tired. And I’m the one who, even though I’ve been run ragged for three years, managed to get something new written, something I was excited about—” She swallowed. There was no point in continuing. Her husband had made the family’s position clear. And she was a member of the family.

“There are other avenues open to you,” Richard said. His voice was flat, lifeless.

It was a lie.

Naomi had slunk away from the edge of the pool. She had done it so slowly that Sarah barely noticed the space that had grown between them. Naomi, who hated conflict. Naomi, who would never ask something complicated, something personal, of Marcus, like she had asked of Richard.

“Sarah—” Marcus was standing behind her now, a hand on her shoulder.

She shook him off. She was tired of being the one who needed to be calmed. That was the thing about the Lingates: they had never met something or someone they couldn’t overcome. That now included her.

“I’m fine,” she said, standing. “I’m going to check on our coffee.”

But then, standing there, in front of all of them, she looked down at her suit, at the wrong texture on the outside, and pulled it down from her shoulders, shimmying out of it and letting it hit the pool deck.

“What the fuck, Sarah—” Richard said.

She stood naked and calmly turned it right side out before pulling it back on, leaving her breasts bare. It was Italy, after all.

“Give me a break, Richard,” she said, rolling her eyes behind her glasses at his prudishness.

“What if someone sees you?”

“Like who? Your brother?” She gestured to Marcus, who had assiduously returned to his paper. “Naomi?” When she looked at her, Naomi did her best to pretend that she hadn’t just been staring at Sarah’s nipples. “No one cares, Richard. Only you care how things look. ”

Because, of course, it was true. Richard and his concerns, Richard and his fears. It was those fears and concerns that had derailed her. It was those fears and concerns she found impossible to forgive.

—

Sarah and Renata stood over the sink in the villa’s kitchen, silently drinking cappuccinos Renata had made for them. The entire room was a mishmash of brightly painted tiles and chipped surfaces, at least a hundred years of graceful, occasionally shabby, wear. Sarah appreciated that Renata didn’t pry. She was discreet.

That was her job.

Behind them, the yellowed wall phone rang, and Renata answered. She covered the receiver with her hand and said, “It’s Stan.”

Sarah took the phone from her.

“Are you coming tonight?” Stan asked.

The audio was scratchy, as if water had fried the lines. It probably had.

“Of course,” Sarah said.

“I’m sorry I missed dinner last night,” Stan said. “There were investors, and—”

“Stan, it’s fine. Really.”

Sarah could see him on the other end of the line, breathing a little too fast, sweat beading on his forehead. Marcus and Richard had known Stan since their teen years and enjoyed making fun of how earnest he was, how ambitious, how grasping. Two things that caused them secondhand embarrassment. But Sarah understood Stan. She liked him. He was the one person in L.A. with whom things felt easy. Even if he followed the brothers around like a lost dog, which was how he ended up on Capri, aping their family vacation.

“All right,” he said, his guilt assuaged. “I wanted to see you, of course.”

Sarah let the comment hang between them. Richard liked to make fun of Stan for the way he looked at Sarah. He’s in love with you! It’s so obvious. Doesn’t he find it humiliating? I’m standing right here.

“Stan—” Sarah said gently.

Renata, Sarah could tell, was doing her best not to listen. Or to listen in the passive way that all the Lingate staff listened when they didn’t want to get sued.

On the other end of the line, Stan cleared his throat. “Anyway. Okay. I’ll see you tonight. Oh, and I hope you don’t mind, but I mentioned to a friend that you were working again.”

Sarah had told Stan about the play. It was a premature decision. She had been excited. Too excited.

“Actually, I’m setting that aside for now,” Sarah said.

Renata soaped and rinsed their cups, and Sarah wished, just for a minute, that she would leave.

“She’ll be at the party tonight,” Stan said. He sounded equal parts excited and apologetic. “Maybe I could introduce you. For future things?”

“Thank you, Stan,” Sarah said. “I’ll see you tonight.”

She hung up the phone, and as soon as she did, she could hear their voices. They were arguing at the pool. Marcus saying, “You married a woman who makes things up for a living. Who stages fictional occurrences. What did you think was going to happen? That the fiction was always going to be to your liking? That it would always be appropriate?”

“This isn’t my fault,” Richard said.

Renata sneaked a glance at Sarah, and Sarah flushed. It was embarrassing. To be spoken about like you weren’t there. Like Renata wasn’t there. Both of us, Sarah thought, are so invisible to them.

“If you need a place—” Renata started to say. But Marcus’s voice interrupted her.

“You handled it wrong,” he said. “And you know it. You should have talked to me first.”

“I don’t get involved in your marital spats.” Richard’s voice was stony. “So stay the fuck out of mine.”

Renata turned around and leaned against the sink. Sarah could feel her eyes on the side of her face. But the housekeeper stayed silent, as if she didn’t want to risk saying too much or, worse, too little.

“It wasn’t a marital spat.” Marcus’s voice was loud enough now that Sarah was sure the neighboring villa could hear. “It was an issue for the family. Instead, you took it upon yourself to handle it. And you did a shit job.”

Sarah had avoided meeting Renata’s eyes, but when she heard Richard say, “What else was I supposed to do? She could have ruined us!” she found her vision jerking in the direction of Renata’s face.

“Don’t let them,” Renata whispered, “don’t let them pull you under.”