Page 12 of The Summer You Were Mine

“She can’t lose her job, she’s a doctor. Isn’t that right, sweetie?” Now Pina was in on it, too, her bangle bracelets jangling as she leaned over to rub Ellie’s arm.

“Well, not the kind of doctor you’re thinking of.”

“Oh! My grandson is a doctor!” Pina went on. “Internal medicine. He lives in San Francisco. He is twenty-eight and lives in a house with six grown men, it’s so expensive. Six! The house is so small, some of them have to share a bedroom!”

Graziella patted Ellie’s hand again and smiled in silent confirmation that poor Pina was probably three briefings behind the press conference.

“Darling, you’re so brilliant. You’ll be fine.

” Now it was Lucrezia. She looked like a pint-sized Cruella de Vil, her black bob accented with an aggressive white section across the whole front of her head.

She was probably seventy-two, but her body looked thirty-two, and no one ever saw her without her Persols and a can of Diet Coke.

“You should take all of those juicy stories people tell you and write books! There’s that one American woman, what is her name?

She writes so many books she needs two names to sell them all.

Nina something? Nona? I heard she owns her own town! It’s marvelous, isn’t it?”

“Thank you, Lucchi, yes, she’s really quite something.

” This was the portion of the show where Ellie knew it was best to smile and thank everyone for their insight.

Actual logic or ethics were no match for anecdotal evidence provided by a mishmash of foggy memory, things read in gossip magazines, and whatever someone heard someone else talking about on the “ Ti Vù .”

“Ellie.” Graziella drew her back with a light touch on her hand. “You really are wonderful on your show. Even though I truly don’t understand much of it, I can just tell by your voice that you must be helping those people with their lives.”

“Thank you, Grandma, but the show is not really a big deal. It’s just a bit of fun,” she said, instantly regretting her words.

She might be downplaying it now, but it actually was a big deal for her.

Ellie had taken the show from an “alternative outreach” project in graduate school to what became known as Games Over in a few short years.

She’d been recording the show as a podcast from her kitchen table for fun, and found that she wasn’t exactly overrun with guests eager to dive into the innermost crevasses of their psyche.

Invitees included her trumpet-playing neighbor, the dog walker who she almost went on a date with, the hairstylist who worked around the corner, and a few other friends and friends of friends.

Half of the people she bribed to talk with homemade cookies didn’t even know what a podcast was back then.

The other half were probably distracted by the sheer amount of recording equipment that could be crammed into an apartment the size of a shoebox.

Finally, a classmate suggested that she interview her boyfriend, who happened to be the recently drafted star rookie running back on the New York Jets.

After one chat with Ellie, he scored three touchdowns to win the season opener and then credited her with the win in the news.

Pretty soon she had more guests than she knew what to do with.

Each one of them found real value in her dispassionate analysis and stunning truthfulness, and they only had to sing her praises publicly a few times before she had an offer from Magniv Media to take her show live, but there was a catch.

They wanted her to interview athletes, exclusively.

At first she wanted to say no. It felt like going back on her own promise to never have anything to do with sports.

It wasn’t just because her dad’s sports career had affected his relationship with the entire family, it was that most people never saw anything wrong with it.

Focusing on athletes would be like sleeping with the enemy.

However, the money they offered meant she could fulfill her dream of staying in New York after graduation.

New York was where she’d felt the happiest, the most alive.

Though she was born in Pennsylvania, they’d moved to California when her dad got the coaching job at USC, and Los Angeles had never felt like home.

She agreed to do it and it wasn’t long before Games Over had given her the first real taste of professional success she’d ever known.

The rush of validation was addictive. She had always been an excellent student with top grades, always been told she was brilliant, but it never felt real to her.

How was she able to pull enormous amounts of information together to write an infobomb of a paper and could see right through a guest on the show, but couldn’t seem to understand how to communicate her own feelings and sometimes missed social cues by a nautical mile?

She’d lived in fear of making mistakes and worried that they would prevent her from being a success.

The show changed that. It was proof that she was good at something.

And people had noticed. Whether she was helping other people or not, she knew that she was very much helping herself—at least in the beginning.

“Some of those people don’t seem like they are having fun. Some of them seem very sad,” said Graziella.

“You’re right. I think some of them might be, but they fight showing who they are. It’s frustrating,” said Ellie.

“Maybe that’s why they need you. You help them see themselves.”

“I don’t know if any of those people want to see much of anything, Grandma. Athletes are—well, you know how they are.” She waved toward her father.

“Our boys are certainly unique,” Graziella chuckled.

“What am I in trouble for now?” asked Gio, standing up straighter so his belly, at least six shades lighter than the rest of his body, pushed forward.

“No one is in trouble,” said Ellie a little louder and a little more cheerful than necessary so that the jury could all hear.

“Maybe you can look into doing that teletherapy,” said Peggy.

“That way no one will be able to see you.” She smiled as she pulled out the few strands of Ellie’s ponytail that were stuck under one of her bathing suit straps and smoothed them.

“Maybe get out of the public eye for a while.” Ellie decided that now was not the moment to remind her mother that she was not qualified to do even that.

“She doesn’t need to hide. She’s so smart that people should be happy to have her opinion,” Gio shot back.

“Maybe she doesn’t want to be the center of attention like some people do,” said Peggy, baring a few too many teeth for casual commentary.

“Who needs attention? What’s wrong?” Simone pulled a chair out and settled in, his long legs bumping against the underside of the table.

Ellie reached out to steady a small glass bottle of Campari Soda as it wobbled in her direction.

There would be no more sticky drink showers this month.

She was starting to feel like an old tennis ball—smashed about, fuzzy, and a little bit deflated.

“Nothing is wrong. On a beautiful day like this, what could be wrong?” Graziella smiled and rubbed the top of Ellie’s hand again.

She looked right into her eyes. “You’ll figure it out, tesoro mio .

Maybe you’d like to go get something to eat?

The café has walk-up service.” She gestured with her head in the direction of the bar and gave Ellie a little wink.

“Go ahead and put whatever you like on my account.”

Grateful for the escape hatch, Ellie wandered over to the café housed in a slatted wooden kiosk with the Delfino logo painted on the awning.

She watched as the three teens inside scurried around pulling coffees, pouring prosecco, and handing out candy or snack bags of chips.

She eyed the poster pinned up on the wall under the counter displaying various photos of ice cream novelties and was immediately hit with a wave of memories.

She’d spent hours standing in line and debating the merits of various ice cream treats with the rest of the crew of kids who had sunburned noses and shiny coins pressed into their palms.

The sound of a Ping-Pong ball clunking against a table made her turn her head.

Two young girls in similar swimsuits, sisters maybe, smacked the ball across to each other while their feet left trails of sand on the blue wood of the terrace.

Her belly fluttered at the sound. The summer after Cris’s dad died, they had been wandering around town when a thunderstorm rolled in.

The boy who’d been somber for weeks had grabbed her hand and they took off running and screaming, finding cover under one of the Ping-Pong tables in the small piazza that had been set up for a tournament.

They huddled together, laughing and soaked, watching the deluge.

She was angry to be wet but thrilled that the storm seemed to shake something loose in him.

Then Ellie got chilled and Cris pulled her under his shoulder and wrapped his long arms around her for warmth.

The hundreds of summer days of shoreline paddle ball, seashell hunting, and sharing cold bottles of Coca-Cola in the hot sun rose up between them.

All those moments of not noticing, then definitely noticing, as your childhood friend turned into a fully adult human right before your eyes, compressed to supernova as they leaned into each other’s lips with the rain beating down over their heads.

“Fior di Fragola.”

Ellie’s stomach gathered in with a zip tie. She turned slightly in the direction of the voice behind her. She didn’t have to guess who would know what kind of ice cream she used to order before she had the chance to think of it herself.

“Not today,” she said.