“I already forgot about it,” she said, her neck a little too tight for him to fully believe her. She uncurled her fingers and slid back into the hall. Her feet beat a quick rhythm down the steps and across the foyer until he couldn’t hear anything but the sound of the seagulls through the bedroom window.
cosa ci fai lì?
It was only a matter of time until his mom texted to ask where he was. She’d gone directly to the beach saying that a dip in the ocean was the best remedy for jet lag. Cinzia had been keeping tabs on him a bit more since theSports Illustratedarticle dropped. She’d seen how people reacted to him in public and it was an obvious departure from the adoration he normally got hit with. They used to ask him to sign a magazine or to take a selfie, all while congratulating him for his latest medal or smashed record. Now they stayed away, across the airport terminal, whispering to one another. They didn’t want pictureswithhim. They wanted picturesofhim. It was difficult to know which side of the argument was more scandalous: whether he trashed his entire legacy to take a banned supplement at the end of his athletic career or whether he was stupid enough to lie about it.
Making his way through the San Francisco airport had been an excruciating process. Short of showing up to check in for the flight with a paper bag over his head, he’d done his absolute best to go incognito. The hat, glasses, and facial hair rendered him more or less unrecognizable until his mother got up to get coffee. She called “Cristiano” from the line across the terminal asking him if he wanted a double or triple espresso. It was then that the phones started following him around like an army of tiny eyeballs designed to catch him in the scandalous act of buying trail mix at Hudson News. He made Cinzia promise to not use his name and only speak to him in Italian to be safe. She got it after that. They sat with their backs to the main hallway and he kept his eyes on his iPad until boarding.
What kind of a no-integrity-having asshole journalist tried to go after an already-retired athlete in the biggest sports magazine in the country? Apparently, it was the kind of no-integrity-having asshole journalist that had tried and failed to qualify for the World Athletic Games himself—in speed skating—about twenty-five years ago. This misanthrope had subsequently made it his life’s mission to troll the bottom of the barrel looking for stories designed to show the dirty side of sports. He had been in trouble for his misplaced accusations before, so he began to write articles like the one he’d written about Cris that “just ask questions.” He’d gotten a tip from an anonymous delivery driver about a professional athlete receiving a package from a particular lab in New Zealand that was known to produce certain banned substances. His MO was to present some flimsy facts, just enough to raise doubts about a previously spotless reputation, and watch as the gossip vultures swarmed in for the picking-apart ceremony. Cris had spent the last week hiding from everyone but the agent he shared with his brothers, Teena Lynn, who told him to absolutelynotaddress theheckler. She said it would die down and fade into nothing as soon as people saw it was a garbage article. Still, the calls kept coming even up to the day before he left for Italy.
“We’ll deal with it. Let me do the damage assessment, but don’t panic,” she’d said. “Go be with your family and don’t think about this now.”
But his familywaswhy he was thinking about this. He was here in Italy, where some of the most important reasons to tell the truth were probably about to tuck into lunch. And now there was Ellie. What would she think? Whatelsewould she think was a better question. It was pretty clear that her thoughts about him were still ranging from “minor idiot” to “gargantuan asshole.” Cris rifled through the bag until he found his swim trunks. No matter how messed up everything was, it wasn’t going to solve itself in here under the capiz shells. He had to get to the beach.
CHAPTER 6
Mario, the owner of the Delfino, sat on the white wooden bench in the shade outside his office door with an unfolded newspaper in his hands. Catching a glimpse of Ellie over the top of his issue ofCorriere della Sera, he tossed the newspaper aside and stood with open arms.
“Eccola qua!”
“Ciao,Mario,” she said, leaning in for a double kiss. “You look wonderful!” Mario’s thick white hair was combed back off his forehead and, as always, he wore a polo shirt to match his swim trunks.
“I’ll take the compliment, though you flatter an old man. I think you’ll need this.” He smiled, pulling a key to the family cabana off the board inside the window of the kiosk and handing it to Ellie. She looked down at the red plastic label engraved with the number79. Same as it ever was.
In fact, all of the Delfino was exactly as it had always been. Multiple rows of bright blue-and-white painted wooden cabanas flowed into a terrace overlooking the sea. Tables and chairs were set up undera large canvas awning on one side where a café and bar served lunch and drinks. On the other side of the bar were wooden sun chairs with thick blue canvas seats lined up in rows, an outdoor shower area, and a stairway leading down to the beach. She could close her eyes and draw every inch from memory. Even the smells were the same at this time of year—fresh paint, suntan lotion, and the faintest whiff of garlic. She smiled, walking down the narrow main hallway, then took a left and stopped at the door marked79and keyed in.
Despite the breeze outside, it was toasty inside the little closet-like space. Ellie hoped she had grabbed everything necessary out of her suitcase as she dug around in her tote for her bikini. Her cotton sundress was already sticking to her skin in the heat as she tried to wriggle her arms out of the shoulder straps. The fabric was absolutely not cooperating. She paused and took a deep breath, but that only directed her attention to the smell of fresh bread wafting in from the café. She was totally starving now. If she could only get her darned bikini on—
“Perché non me l’hai detto?”
That was a voice she knew. Simone. He seemed to be right outside the door, but a bit to her left. Yes, that made sense, since his cabana was in the next row.
“I didn’t think it was anything to worry about, but I’m not sure now. I want you to hear it from me and not read it somewhere or hear it from someone else.”
It was Cris. That deep growl was unmistakable in any language. She was surprised the cabana door wasn’t rattling. But what was he telling his grandfather that Simone didn’t already know? She hunched up close to the left wall and tried to see between the wooden boards. She could only make out the tops of their bodies, Simone’s wide shoulders a few centimeters lower than Cris’s. She was really sweating now, scrunchedagainst the wall in the little wooden hot box with her dress on the floor and bikini strings twisted around her hips.
“People like to talk. Especially when they don’t have much to say.”
“I hope everyone thinks the way you do, Grandpa,” said Cris, but there was something that wavered in his voice. She hated that she still knew him well enough to pick up on it.
“It will disappear. Right? I’m sure it will disappear.”
Silence. Ellie pulled herself onto her tiptoes to where there was a bigger gap between the boards and turned her head so she could shove her ear into the space to hear better. She gripped a clothing hook that was nailed into the side wall and tried to lean in closer.
“The thing is—”
Just then, the hook pulled clean out of the wall. Four snorkel masks and a mesh bag of wooden paddles crashed onto the floor—and Ellie’s foot. She clutched her hand over her mouth and silently screamed into it. Her eyes watered from the sharp pain spreading over the top of her foot. Simone and Cris must have heard the crash or moved on because they certainly weren’t talking anymore. There was no way they would know where the noise came from, but she was annoyed to have missed the end of the conversation. What was going on? It wouldn’t be the first time that Cris did something stupid and hoped no one was paying attention. She looked down at her foot, was relieved to see that it was still attached, straightened the straps on her swimsuit, and got out of the mini sauna.
The best thing about the beaches on the Italian Rivera was not the crystal-clear water or the sparkling sunshine. It was not the constantly flowing Aperol spritz or the trays of fresh-baked focaccia. It was not even the iconic wood-and-canvas umbrellas lined up along therocky shore. It was the fact that every woman, regardless of age or size, rocked a bikini on principle. One-piece bathing suits simply were not worn. They could be eighty or eighteen, but the two-piece rule was as good as law, and no one even thought to question it. Ellie was thrilled to see that Graziella and the rest of the ladies of the Delfino remained unbothered when it came to body image. All six of them sat around three pushed-together plastic café tables on the terrace. Not one of them was wearing more than two scraps of multicolored fabric and a smile. There were halters and cross-backs, strapless and string tops. Some rode low under the weight of their freight. Others were lifted and separated. All were glorious.
“Ellieeeee!Ma che bella che sei!”
“Eccola!”
“Ma guarda che bella la tua nipotina!”
The chorus of compliments rang out over the terrace as Ellie approached. She smiled and finally felt the stale New York air in her lungs flow out. This was home.
“Ciao!” she said, doling out double kisses to each and every person. This kind of contact would be intolerable to her in every other circumstance but this one. Here, it was expected and she’d learned to go with it. The corresponding husbands had already adjourned to the post-lunch card table, and waved at her. She blew kisses and waved back. Simone was not among them yet, which meant that Cris was still wandering around as well. Her parents still hadn’t made it over from the apartment. She hoped they weren’t competing in aerobic bickering all the way to the beach. She took another breath, caught herself. This would be a long week if she was going to keep GPS tabs on everyone.
