Page 21 of The Summer You Were Mine

“CICCIAAAAA!”

Ellie heard Greta’s raspy shout from across the terrace at the Delfino.

Aside from living in two different countries, they also lived in two different worlds.

Greta had three children by the age of thirty-two and was currently pregnant with her fourth— very pregnant.

Ellie had only seen her from her chest up on FaceTime for the last seven months and was absolutely not prepared to see the tiny Greta looking like she was carrying a rhinoceros.

“Gigi! Oh my God, you are so cute!” Ellie hugged Greta’s shoulders and stepped back to look at her.

“Cute? I look like a Fiat Cinquecento. It’s another girl, right?” Greta said, pointing at her face. “You know every time I have a girl my lips go Kylie on me and my nose turns into a potato. And here I am.” Greta puckered her lips.

“I am not going to try to convince you, but you’re gorgeous.”

“You’re delusional, but I’m going to blame it on stress. How have they been?” Greta asked, flicking her eyes over to Ellie’s parents.

“I’m not sure, actually. One minute he’s asking her which shirt to wear with his pants and the next minute he’s googling studio apartments near campus.”

“He’s going to move out?” asked Greta.

“Well, I’m not super experienced, but I’m pretty sure that when you get divorced, you’re supposed to not live together.” Ellie shook her head. “I don’t know, it’s all so stupid.”

“Aren’t they too old for that?”

“Divorce? Or stupid?”

“Either. Both? Don’t answer that. They are behind you.” Greta said through a plastered-on smile. She waved over Ellie’s shoulder. “ Ciao, Peggy! Ciao, Gio! Happy summer!”

“Well, look at you. You are just lovely! Honestly, you get more beautiful with every child. Even on my first one I already looked like the wreck of the Hesperus. This one here ruined me.” Peggy chuckled, rubbing Ellie’s arm.

“Congratulations to you both,” said Gio. “Where is Flavio, anyway?”

“Thank you, Gio! He’ll be here this weekend. He had to wrap up some last-minute client stuff in Milan.”

“Tell him to call me when he gets here. I want to ask him about a road bike,” said Gio.

Flavio and Greta had met doing triathlons and had agreed to mutually pause their training while Greta was pregnant.

However, since she’d been pregnant for a longer-than-expected stretch, Flavio indulged his athletic obsession by becoming a massive bike nerd.

“Are you going to become a cyclist now, Dad?” Ellie was pretty sure her dad had arthritis in at least two-thirds of his still-functioning joints—on a good day. Plus, Gio in a cycling kit would look like four tree branches got in a fight with a pair of panty hose. Not cute.

“I might. It seems like a great way to meet people,” he said.

“People.” Ellie could feel the veins in her neck starting to bulge. Her eyes narrowed. “What people do you need to meet?”

“Cycling is a great way to stay in shape,” said Greta, clamping down on Ellie’s hand and pulling.

“I’ll tell Flavio to find you. We’re all here anyway!

I’m going to steal Ellie for a minute. You don’t mind, do you?

” Greta all but yanked Ellie away from her parents and over to the stairway leading down to the beach.

“You’re going to have a stroke, ciccia . Do you want a glass of wine?” She gestured toward the café.

“No. I’m fine,” Ellie said. She wasn’t fine. The only thing she knew for certain was that this summer was going to kill her. She blew out a breath and held on to the railing.

“Come on, let’s sit.” Greta pulled Ellie over to a wooden bench and eased herself down. “I’m not going to lie, I still can’t believe what is going on with your parents.”

“Tell me about it. I feel like I don’t even know them. It’s not just them—it’s everything. I thought I knew what I was doing and now nothing makes sense.”

“Ellie, no one knows what they are doing,” Greta said. She leaned closer, her blue eyes wide. “You are aware that we are all faking it, right?”

“You seem to know what you’re doing.” Ellie looked down at Greta’s belly.

“Are you kidding me? Just because I know how to make babies doesn’t mean that I know how to turn them into people.

You think I have it all figured out?” Greta shook her head and pursed her lips.

“I did laundry with body lotion for three days last week before I figured out that my dispenser bottles were switched. Sometimes Flavio and I get so tired that we manually turn the clocks forward to get the kids to go to bed early, and I am pretty sure that I’ve fed at least two of them tripe and said it was ‘sponge noodles.’ No, Ellie. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Well, okay, but you’re juggling so much more. All I have is me, and I can’t even get that right.”

“You are being way too hard on yourself. Do you think any less of me for my screwups?”

“Never. To me, you’re always perfect, and I love you. I don’t care if you lie to your children because tripe is delicious and kids should be in bed by 4:00 P.M. ”

“I know, right? Thank you for that, and I love you, too, but why can’t you be as kind to yourself as you are to me? You’ll figure it out, El. You don’t have to have the ability to control and orchestrate everything perfectly. That kind of life would be so boring, anyway!”

“I get what you’re saying. And it’s the stuff I’ve been saying to other people for years, but for some reason I can’t get it to make sense for me. I’m good at planning for what’s going to happen. I mean, I was…” Ellie put her face down.

“Hey. Look, you’re not supposed to be a fortune teller. You can’t predict the future, but if you could I’d like you to tell me if I’m going to need an epidural for the fourth one or if it’s going to shoot out of me like my vagina is a waterslide.”

“You know, if you’re trying to get me to be interested in having kids one day, this is not the way to do it. But I don’t need to tell the future, exactly. I just like a little more order than… whatever this is,” Ellie said, gesturing around the terrace.

“Order? Uff, ciccia , the universe is random. You’re the only person I know who takes it personally. Oh my God, what is that?” Greta looked up toward the entrance of the beach club and pulled her sunglasses down an inch. “Is that… no, it can’t be.”

“Yep. That’s him.” Ellie was already used to the super-deluxe version of Cris and barely needed to look up to confirm.

“ Mamma mia, where did he get all that hair?” Her eyes flicked down his body as he walked toward them looking like it was fashion week at the Delfino. “And all the rest of it—”

Ellie sighed. Yeah, yeah. Cris grew some chest hair and got thick. Couldn’t everyone move on now? “Anyway, I forgot to remind you to tell Flavio that he has to pretend he doesn’t know about my parents.”

“Who’s Flavio? Cristiano!” Greta hoisted her body up and waved both hands at Cris. He immediately smiled and walked over.

“ Ciao, Greta,” he said, kissing her on both cheeks.

“Well, hello yourself! What happened to you?” Greta was gushing, but Cris looked unsure how to answer. His eyes darted over to Ellie.

“I think what you mean is—” Ellie tried to jump in.

“I mean you look amazing!” said Greta.

“Thanks. So do you.” Cris smiled and gestured toward Greta’s midsection.

“Well, I don’t know about that.” Greta looked down at her belly and gave it a rub. “Any alterations here are temporary. But, you—this is good on you,” she said, waving a finger up and down at him. “Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it.”

“I’ll try,” he said. “Hey, El. When do you want to get together again? I want to spend time with my grandfather before we all get busy, so I figured I’d ask what your plans are.”

Ellie could practically hear Greta’s gears turning inside her head.

“How about tomorrow morning? We have the dinner all together tomorrow night, so we could get it out of the way before that.”

“Okay. Let’s meet out front at ten again.” He nodded toward the beach club entrance.

“Fine with me,” she said.

Ellie and Greta said their goodbyes to Cris, and he only took one step down to the beach before Greta was hissing in her ear. “What is going on with you two?”

“Nothing. We’re working on a project together.” Ellie quickly explained what they were doing but left out the part where she almost passed out watching him eat breakfast and he was maybe sniffing horn.

“Well, this is a long way from the scared voice on the phone telling me you were worried about seeing him! Don’t tell me you two may actually get your shit together before we’re old enough to qualify for half-price tickets at the movie theater.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Oh, but it should be! You make it seem like you two haven’t been making googly eyes at each other since Berlusconi was in office—the first time!”

“You know that was a one-way ticket to nowhere. Let’s just call it a crush.”

“Sure. And let’s just call these bocce a couple of Raisinettes,” Greta said, cupping the underside of each of her breasts.

“Look, that ship has sailed,” Ellie said, stifling a laugh. “Aside from that, he’s an athlete, so no.” Though the excuse was starting to sound thin even to her own ears.

“ Ma smettila! Athletes are people, too, especially when they look like January on the Chippendales calendar. I know it was your job to tell people what to do, but you should listen to me. Whatever project you’re working on should be aimed at getting in each other’s pants finally.”

“Gigi. Seriously?”

“Oh, come on. You know this trip is also supposed to be fun, right?”

“Are you saying I don’t know how to have fun?”

“I’m saying you’re a little rigid, ciccia, let’s be real.”

“I’m fun. I do fun things.”

“Like what?”

Ellie tried to think. What had she done that was fun recently? “Look,” she said, grabbing a lock of her ponytail. “I got highlights. Highlights are fun!”

“Highlights are not fun. In fact, they are a fake for what naturally happens when you’re outside and doing the fun kinds of things that make sunshine hit your hair for hours so it changes colors. Try again.”

“I went to that show with the magician at the Nomad Hotel.”

“You went because one of your sponsors gave you the tickets for Christmas. And you texted me to complain that the popcorn was ‘too truffle-y’ which means ‘no fun at all.’”

“Too much umami bothers me. I taste it all night and can’t sleep.”

“And that’s okay! You have strong preferences. I get it. But you have to kind of let go, you know? You have to forget the rules sometimes and just be . It’s good for you!”

Ellie hated to admit that Greta was right, but she was totally dead-on, minus the getting in each other’s pants part.

Somewhere along the way, Ellie had gotten the idea that staying safe meant staying boring.

Trying for fun meant opening the door to the unexpected, and that felt like asking for trouble.

Why not keep everything predictable and avoid the possibility of disappointment—or failure?

Except failures happened anyway. She turned and looked over her shoulder at the sea stretched out behind her.

The afternoon sun lit sparkly peaks across the waves as they gently curled in to the shore.

At some point she was going to have to address her fears. Why not now?

“Okay. I’m going to have fun. You’ll see,” said Ellie. “The next opportunity I get, I’m going to take it.”

“ Brava! Good. You’re only here for a short time, right?

Give things a chance to surprise you. Know what I mean?

Okay, I am done talking. I’d better go round up whatever children might belong to me.

Pina can only go so long before she gets nervous she’s going to drown in baby germs.” Greta gestured to one of the tables where Renata and Pina were holding one sleeping toddler and cooing over another one in a highchair.

Ellie sat for another moment, still looking down at the beach.

Where did her parents go? She squinted and put a hand up to shield her face.

Peggy was standing at the shore laughing with Graziella, and she could see her dad’s head bobbing in the water with Simone and some of the others.

Everything looked normal. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. It was high time she did, too.