He points to the end of the bar where there is a jug set up with cups next to it. I make my way over and drink three glasses. The water is cold and satisfying. It tastes like taking a shower. I bring one full cup over to Carol.
“Ah!” she says. “Water, praise you.” She downs it. “I was just telling Remo about dinner.”
I point to my distended stomach. “So good.”
Remo laughs. “Food is for eating,” he says. “And music for dancing.”
He takes Carol’s hand and leads her away from the bar to the center of the room, through the gathered drinkers. A few couples are locked together. Two men who look to be no more than eighteen bob their shoulders to the music. Remo twirls Carol and then lets go, leaving her to spin.
The music kicks up, a remake of an eighties pop song. It gets louder. I watch Carol, eyes closed, moving to the rhythm.
I make my way to her. I take her hand. I begin to move to the beat, not letting go of her fingers. We sway and jump and dance together, like that. It feels like we’re the only two people on the dance floor. It feels like we’re the only two people in the world. Two young women having the time of their life on the Italian shore.
For the first time since she died—maybe long before that—I feel totally free. Not weighed down by any decisions I’ve already made and not constrained by what’s to come. I am fully and completely here. Sweat drenched, wine drunk, present.
“Remo is so into you!” I call when he goes to get a refill on drinks. Carol crushes a bill into his hand before he departs.
“I insist,” she says.
“No, he’s not,” she says. She brushes me off. “I told you. We’re friends.”
“Trust me,” I say. “He is. Why wouldn’t he be?”
Carol shakes her head. “You’re drunk.”
“Maybe,” I say. “But why not? He’s very cute.” I look over to where Remo, head back, laughing, is at the bar. “You won’t be here forever.”
Carol looks at me, and there is a severity to her gaze that wasn’t there a moment before. I suddenly feel myself struggle to be sober. “I can’t do that,” she says.
“Okay,” I say. “It’s just that he’s hot and you’re here.”
And then she reaches into her bag and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. She fishes inside for one, lights it, and pulls. It all happens in the span of a second. So quickly I can barely compute it. Here is my mother, in Italy,smoking.
“Do you want?” she asks me, exhaling a cloud.
“No,” I say.
She shrugs, pulls again, and then I see her watching Remo. “I think you should,” she says.
“I don’t smoke.”
She rolls her eyes. “Sleep with Remo, I mean. If anyone should, it should be you.”
“He’s not my type,” I say quickly.
Carol looks amused. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m not,” I say.
“So who is?”
All at once, Adam’s image flashes in my head. He’s dressed like he was today. In a gray T-shirt and board shorts and then, nothing at all.
“You’re blushing,” Carol says.
“How can you tell? It’s dark and it’s a thousand degrees in here.”
Carol smiles. “Fine,” she says. “But then I’m allowed to have secrets, too.”
