Dad looks up with open interest. “Okay, shoot.”
“Back in your first summer here, what did you—” I cut myself off, trying to figure out how to word the awkward inquiry. “I mean, I know it’s when you and Dr. Alex first became close friends. I’m curious what you know, or knew—what she told you about—well, about Cammie’s dad.”
His brows shoot up, the question clearly catching him off guard. But he doesn’t shut down or deflect, which tells me right away he has nothing to hide on the subject. “Honestly, West, I never knew much. Alex and I were close, yes. Her parents were back in the States, so she was sort of adopted into our little family. But when she told me she was pregnant, she just said the father was not going to be involved. Something along the lines of how it wasn’t ‘meant to be’ between the two of them but that she was okay. So I never pushed it.”
I consider this. “And it just…never came up again?”Out of all the wine-drunk heart-to-hearts I’ve overheard while pretending to be asleep?I add silently.
Dad shakes his head. “From the day Cammie was born, they were their own unit. It never seemed like anything—or anyone—was missing. And to have questioned her about Cammie’s father, well, it always seemed like that would have been…” His gaze goes distant again as he thinks through his words. “It would have felt like I was questioning Alex’s abilities as a parent. I never would have done that to her.” He looks back to me quickly. “Not that I think that’s what you’re doing. But if you don’t mind me asking, what brought this up?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I say, tilting my head and looking over Dad’s shoulder like someone back there might be holding up cue cards. “I guess I’ve just been thinking a lot since we’ve been here about what it was like back then. And obviously there’s all this talk of the Bambina di Bronzo story…for the documentary, and, well, I don’t know. It’s made me curious.”
I manage to veer us toward the topic of the documentary, asking Dad what he thinks of it so far, getting him to talk some shit about John Mark/Gianmarco again as he recounts an argument between him and Ilaria over areas of Villa Russo approved for filming. We’re laughing by the time we head back. Under the dark night sky, I feel the lightest I have in days.
My mind keeps returning to Dad’s advice about just saying yes. I may not be ready to apply it to the Germany decision yet, but I know where else it’ll work. After we say our good-nights and split off toward our respective rooms, I take the stairs tomy floor two at a time, then walk down the quiet hallway and knock on the door beside mine.
A few seconds pass before it swings open, revealing Cammie in a baggy T-shirt and pajama shorts that barely qualify as shorts and make it difficult to keep my eyes on her freckled face. The surprise that paints her features is quickly replaced by skepticism, and her arms cross over her chest.
“Can I help you?” she asks dryly. Her hardened facade shouldn’t bring a smile to my face, but for some sick reason, it does.
I’m so screwed.
“I don’t know,” I say with faux nonchalance, “but I think I can help you.”
Chapter Nine
Cammie
The good news is thatWest is able to narrow down my Paolo Bianchi list until we find, with roughly 97 percent certainty,thePaolo Bianchi.
The bad news is it proceeds to rain for several days straight.
The first day, I don’t think much of the steady drizzle. Mom and Dr. Danny accompany the film crew on excursions into Naples, where they do some filming with the bronze statues and other artifacts that are kept in permanent collections at the National Archaeological Museum. West and I are left to our own devices, free to shut ourselves in the library and pore over everything in Mom’s journal that has to do with “PB.” West scans one of the Polaroids in which PB’s face is more clearly visible into his computer. He does some weird age-up program-y thing on it, and then some reverse image search-y thing, and before I can say “Are you sure you don’t work forthe CIA?”—voilà!—he has located one Paolo Bianchi (Middle-Aged Version).
Potential Papa Paolo, conveniently for our purposes, is a boat captain, leading small group tours from the town of Sorrento to the island of Capri. I immediately book two spots on one for the following day.
That’s when the rain gets less cute.
I still try to hang in the library with West. When it’s obvious that I’m mostly just annoying him with my loud groans and whines about the weather while he ignores me and does his little computer-y thing, I return to my room. I continue to study the journal, making a sort of profile of PB as I prepare to meet him. It looks like he and my mom only went on a few dates, as he appears in just a few entries. Maybe that makes him a more likely dad candidate? If things between them weren’t that deep, and he didn’t feel very attached to Mom, it would make more sense he wouldn’t want to stick around and raise a kid together.
Other than that, I know she met him at a bar near the university in Naples; that he was also in the social sciences, though on the cultural anthropology side; that one of their dates was a sail on his dad’s boat, which Paolo borrowed without his dad’s permission; and that he was an “amaaazing” kisser, though I’d rather not think much about that. Past Alex was discreet about the physical aspects of her relationships with these men, at least in writing. While it would be more helpful for my search if she had made a list titled “People I’ve Slept With,” I appreciate, for the sake of ever being able to look at her the same, that she kept it vague.
Each day the rain persists, I get an email from Paolo Bianchi’s tour company, apologizing for the postponement of yet another tour and giving us a complimentary rebooking. Each day, I rebook for the following morning. Finally, three mornings later, the clouds part, the sun reemerges, and West and I get on a train to Sorrento.
This time, we don’t even have to lie to our parents about where we’re going. I tell my mom that I’m excited to see the island of Capri—true enough—and that West has graciously agreed to go with me, easing her concerns over my safety before they can even develop. She does make a raised-brow sort of comment about “all this time I’m spending with Weston,” looking at me expectantly. But I feign obliviousness, explaining that I’m not exactly surrounded by potential travel buddies here.
On this train ride, West and I try something new for us—sitting across from each other. As I’m reminding him of the day’s itinerary, he makes a shushing noise, and I look up to find him peering around us.
“Do you want us to be followed or something?” he asks in a whispered rush. “You never announce your specific travel plans loudly on public transit when you’re clearly a tourist speaking a different language. You might as well be calling out, ‘Follow me! Pickpocket me! Kidnap me and hold me for ransom!’ ”
I groan. “Oh God, you’ve seen theTakenmovies, too.”
“The what?” West asks.
“Never mind.”
“I don’t know what movies you’re talking about, but I do know basic travel safety,” he scolds. “I thought you did, too, growing up the way we did.”
“If ‘basic travel safety’ means engaging with the world like a paranoid weirdo, I think I’ll continue living on the edge, thanks.”
