Page 11 of The Summer You Were Mine

Mario, the owner of the Delfino, sat on the white wooden bench in the shade outside his office door with an unfolded newspaper in his hands. Catching a glimpse of Ellie over the top of his issue of Corriere della Sera , he tossed the newspaper aside and stood with open arms.

“Eccola qua!”

“ Ciao, Mario,” she said, leaning in for a double kiss. “You look wonderful!” Mario’s thick white hair was combed back off his forehead and, as always, he wore a polo shirt to match his swim trunks.

Despite the breeze outside, it was toasty inside the little closet-like space.

Ellie hoped she had grabbed everything necessary out of her suitcase as she dug around in her tote for her bikini.

Her cotton sundress was already sticking to her skin in the heat as she tried to wriggle her arms out of the shoulder straps.

The fabric was absolutely not cooperating.

She paused and took a deep breath, but that only directed her attention to the smell of fresh bread wafting in from the café.

She was totally starving now. If she could only get her darned bikini on—

“Perché non me l’hai detto?”

That was a voice she knew. Simone. He seemed to be right outside the door, but a bit to her left. Yes, that made sense, since his cabana was in the next row.

“I didn’t think it was anything to worry about, but I’m not sure now. I want you to hear it from me and not read it somewhere or hear it from someone else.”

It was Cris. That deep growl was unmistakable in any language.

She was surprised the cabana door wasn’t rattling.

But what was he telling his grandfather that Simone didn’t already know?

She hunched up close to the left wall and tried to see between the wooden boards.

She could only make out the tops of their bodies, Simone’s wide shoulders a few centimeters lower than Cris’s.

She was really sweating now, scrunched against the wall in the little wooden hot box with her dress on the floor and bikini strings twisted around her hips.

“People like to talk. Especially when they don’t have much to say.”

“I hope everyone thinks the way you do, Grandpa,” said Cris, but there was something that wavered in his voice. She hated that she still knew him well enough to pick up on it.

“It will disappear. Right? I’m sure it will disappear.”

Silence. Ellie pulled herself onto her tiptoes to where there was a bigger gap between the boards and turned her head so she could shove her ear into the space to hear better. She gripped a clothing hook that was nailed into the side wall and tried to lean in closer.

“The thing is—”

Just then, the hook pulled clean out of the wall.

Four snorkel masks and a mesh bag of wooden paddles crashed onto the floor—and Ellie’s foot.

She clutched her hand over her mouth and silently screamed into it.

Her eyes watered from the sharp pain spreading over the top of her foot.

Simone and Cris must have heard the crash or moved on because they certainly weren’t talking anymore.

There was no way they would know where the noise came from, but she was annoyed to have missed the end of the conversation.

What was going on? It wouldn’t be the first time that Cris did something stupid and hoped no one was paying attention.

She looked down at her foot, was relieved to see that it was still attached, straightened the straps on her swimsuit, and got out of the mini sauna.

The best thing about the beaches on the Italian Rivera was not the crystal-clear water or the sparkling sunshine.

It was not the constantly flowing Aperol spritz or the trays of fresh-baked focaccia.

It was not even the iconic wood-and-canvas umbrellas lined up along the rocky shore.

It was the fact that every woman, regardless of age or size, rocked a bikini on principle.

One-piece bathing suits simply were not worn.

They could be eighty or eighteen, but the two-piece rule was as good as law, and no one even thought to question it.

Ellie was thrilled to see that Graziella and the rest of the ladies of the Delfino remained unbothered when it came to body image.

All six of them sat around three pushed-together plastic café tables on the terrace.

Not one of them was wearing more than two scraps of multicolored fabric and a smile.

There were halters and cross-backs, strapless and string tops.

Some rode low under the weight of their freight.

Others were lifted and separated. All were glorious.

“ Ellieeeee! Ma che bella che sei!”

“Eccola!”

“Ma guarda che bella la tua nipotina!”

The chorus of compliments rang out over the terrace as Ellie approached. She smiled and finally felt the stale New York air in her lungs flow out. This was home.

“ Ciao! ” she said, doling out double kisses to each and every person.

This kind of contact would be intolerable to her in every other circumstance but this one.

Here, it was expected and she’d learned to go with it.

The corresponding husbands had already adjourned to the post-lunch card table, and waved at her.

She blew kisses and waved back. Simone was not among them yet, which meant that Cris was still wandering around as well.

Her parents still hadn’t made it over from the apartment.

She hoped they weren’t competing in aerobic bickering all the way to the beach.

She took another breath, caught herself.

This would be a long week if she was going to keep GPS tabs on everyone.

She looked over at Graziella sitting with the same friends she’d had for decades.

One of them was forking into another one’s fruit salad, one was chewing on a glossy slice of bread, and all of them were talking at the same time.

Did any of them look like they were worried about who was doing what and where?

No. They probably hadn’t felt the need to think too much beyond what would be the weather report for the next day and if they did or did not want caffè corretto after lunch.

And yet here they were, so absolutely fine and fabulous it made her eyes hurt.

“Ellie. Vieni qui ,” said Graziella, pulling out an empty chair next to her.

Ellie knew what was coming next and smiled, getting ready to hear it.

“ Dimmi un po’di te, ” she said, clasping Ellie’s hand with her own, which was covered in gold rings and bracelets.

They talked once a week on FaceTime, but it would never replace a face-to-face sitdown with Grandma.

“Talk to me. How have you been since all of that trouble?”

What she wanted to say was Well, Gram, it’s a real shit show right now, but what she settled on was “I hope it’s going to be fine.

I’m doing everything I can to fix things.

We’re putting out feelers for new guests and sponsors.

” Ellie filled her in on a strategizing session she’d squeezed in right before coming to Italy.

What that really translated to was her texting back and forth with Omar about all the things she was going to do to make sure he didn’t miss a paycheck.

He texted her back saying that he had zero doubt in her ability to lead the comeback campaign and that she should “ stai zitta ,” a takedown he’d been proud to get from Google Translate.

He said the Italian version of “shut up” sounded nicer than his usual “ cállate la boca. ”

“ Cosa vuol dire ‘feelers’ ? ”

“It means you try to understand what they think about something.”

“And you’re worried about this, yes? Why don’t you ask them directly?” Graziella asked.

“Because it’s not like here. People aren’t likely to tell you to your face that you’re a disaster.”

“I didn’t know that you were so worried about your disaster,” said Peggy.

Her mother finally appeared in her yellow eyelet coverup, proving that her parents had been able to multitask between barb-throwing and a wardrobe change.

Peggy was a one-piece bathing suit kind of woman, no matter what country she was in, and she rarely sat without the yellow frock at the lunch table.

Ellie remembered her mumbling something about it being improper to eat with one’s belly out at some point, but whispering something in English was as good as not saying it at all.

Peggy squinted up at the umbrella above their heads and moved her chair to a shady spot.

“Hi, Mom.” She turned her attention back to her grandmother. “I don’t know if I’m worried. I’m just—”

“Feeling,” said Graziella, leaning toward Peggy. “She’s feeling .”

“Right. I’m feeling.” Ellie smiled instead of correcting her grandmother.

“What is she feeling? Is she sick?” asked Gio as he sidled up to the group from the other side of the table. She really hoped her parents could be civil in public like they’d promised. Maybe they would play it so cool that no one would suspect anything.

Peggy rolled her eyes and let out a puff of breath at Gio. So much for that theory. “She’s not sick. She’s worried,” she said—a little too loudly.

“Ah… That can make you sick, you know. What are you worried about?” It was Maria Elena, to her left, with a bustline like the prow of a ship. And here we go, thought Ellie. It was time to open the floor up for questioning, apparently.

“Well, I may have made a little bit of a mistake with my job.” It was the only way she could think of to explain what was happening to a group of people who thought live-streaming was what happened when you poured wine or olive oil.

“Will you lose it? You still live in New York, right? How will you afford to live if you don’t work?” Maria Elena asked, turning up the jets on the anxiety Jacuzzi in Ellie’s head. Maria Elena was usually hysterical about at least one thing per lunch hour.