Janie batted at the air. “I usually keep my phone off.”
“To avoid him?”
Janie nodded and lowered her eyes. “I know I have to face him eventually.”
“Do you?” Chloe smiled and tugged at Janie’s elbow, guiding her to the turquoise pool, where they sat on sunbeds and removed their dresses. It was like old times: letting the sun drench them and tan their skin. Back in the old days, they hadn’t cared about wrinkles, about UV protection, about anything that might hurt them. Janie willed those days to return.
But Chloe was just as beautiful as she’d been when Janie met her all those years ago.
“Tell me,” Chloe said. “Are you all right?”
Janie winced and scrunched her face. This wasn’t a question anyone had asked her straight-on like this, and it almost felt too nosy, too aggressive, too emotional.
Chloe reached for her hand. “It’s going to be okay, you know?”
“But,” Janie whispered, her heart racing, “there’s still so much I don’t understand. What if Alexander has been this, like, monster the whole time? What if his name is smeared throughmud, and his children, our children, have to carry what he did? What if he never gets his job back and we have to sell the house? And where is he hiding? All these questions are eating me up inside. It’s too much.”
Chloe bowed her head. “Let it out, honey. Say whatever you want to say.”
Janie inhaled sharply. “I can’t stop thinking about the summer I got involved with him. I mean, you were there. You must remember it.” She wet her lips, which were beginning to feel sharp and cracked. Then, before she chickened out, she asked the question that had been on her mind for months, if not years. She asked Chloe, “Why didn’t you tell me about them?”
Chloe smarted and withdrew her hand. Janie’s cheeks were hot. She hated that she’d just accused Chloe of being a bad friend, of not telling her everything. But she felt that way. And wasn’t honesty the best course? Sometimes?
Chloe stretched both of her hands across the flat of her stomach and looked toward the sky. “I have so many questions about those long-ago summers,” Chloe whispered. “I ask myself over and over why I let myself get in so deep. I ask myself why I let them do to me what they did. I ask myself why I put up with it and why I went back.” She reached under her sunglasses and wiped a tear from beneath her eye. “I’ve been consumed by guilt since then. It haunts me, you know?”
Janie sat up and put her feet on the hot concrete. Chloe had never been so candid about her own past with the Whitmores, and it startled her. She felt guilty for bringing it up. But she considered that Chloe might have come to LA for such discussions. That, and she’d wanted to support Janie and her children. It touched Janie’s heart.
“Listen to me,” Chloe whispered, “blubbering on. I’ll probably feel guilty about making you listen to me when you’re going through so much yourself. But suffice it to say, theWhitmores changed both of our lives—maybe for the better, maybe for the worse. We can’t undo what’s been done. We have to survive the repercussions. Somehow.”
Chapter Eight
July 2025
Tuscany
Alexander found himself sitting in the back seat of a cab next to Nina and Charlotte Whitmore. His palms sweaty, he wiped them on his lap and listened as Charlotte spoke rapidly in Italian to the driver, telling him where they wanted to go. The cab driver recognized the address and said aloud their grandfather’s name, the Italian director, their mother’s father.
“He’s our grandfather,” Charlotte affirmed to him.
The cab driver was overjoyed with this news and spoke at length about his love for cinema, particularly their grandfather’s films. He drove far too fast and dangerously around the airport and onto the highway.Such were all Italian cab drivers, Alexander thought. It was like they weren’t afraid of death.
Alexander, who’d mentally prepared himself to be on a flight to London followed by a flight to Los Angeles, felt it all like whiplash. He couldn’t get his mind around why his sisters werehere, nor why they hadn’t been shocked to find him at the airport. In fact, they’d said, “We’re here for you, silly.”
When the cab driver finally shut up about their grandfather’s movies, Alexander asked, “Where did you fly from?”
“Boston,” Charlotte and Nina answered in unison.
“You were together? On the East Coast?” Alexander asked.
“Yes,” they said again.
“On Nantucket,” Nina said.
Alexander felt again like he was in a nightmare, maybe twisted up in sheets at the hotel. None of this made any sense. Nina reached over and touched his arm, mouthing, “We’ll explain everything,” as the driver sped down the road. Alexander thought he was going to be sick.
“Mom doesn’t know I’m in Italy,” he said.
“True. We didn’t tell her. But she’s about to find out!” Charlotte declared.
