“Maybe that’s why they need you. You help them see themselves.”
“I don’t know if any of those people want to see much of anything, Grandma. Athletes are—well, you know how they are.” She waved toward her father.
“Our boys are certainly unique,” Graziella chuckled.
“What am I in trouble for now?” asked Gio, standing up straighter so his belly, at least six shades lighter than the rest of his body, pushed forward.
“No one is in trouble,” said Ellie a little louder and a little more cheerful than necessary so that the jury could all hear.
“Maybe you can look into doing that teletherapy,” said Peggy. “That way no one will be able to see you.” She smiled as she pulled out the few strands of Ellie’s ponytail that were stuck under one of her bathing suit straps and smoothed them. “Maybe get out of the public eye for a while.” Ellie decided that now was not the moment to remind her mother that she was not qualified to do even that.
“She doesn’t need to hide. She’s so smart that people should be happy to have her opinion,” Gio shot back.
“Maybe she doesn’t want to be the center of attention likesome peopledo,” said Peggy, baring a few too many teeth for casual commentary.
“Who needs attention? What’s wrong?” Simone pulled a chair out and settled in, his long legs bumping against the underside of the table. Ellie reached out to steady a small glass bottle of Campari Soda as it wobbled in her direction. There would be no more sticky drink showers this month. She was starting to feel like an old tennis ball—smashed about, fuzzy, and a little bit deflated.
“Nothing is wrong. On a beautiful day like this, what could be wrong?” Graziella smiled and rubbed the top of Ellie’s hand again. She looked right into her eyes. “You’ll figure it out,tesoro mio.Maybe you’d like to go get something to eat? The café has walk-up service.” She gestured with her head in the direction of the bar and gave Ellie a little wink. “Go ahead and put whatever you like on my account.”
Grateful for the escape hatch, Ellie wandered over to the café housed in a slatted wooden kiosk with the Delfino logo painted on the awning. She watched as the three teens inside scurried around pulling coffees, pouring prosecco, and handing out candy or snack bags of chips. She eyed the poster pinned up on the wall under the counter displaying various photos of ice cream novelties and was immediately hit with a wave of memories. She’d spent hours standing in line and debating the merits of various ice cream treats with the rest of the crew of kids who had sunburned noses and shiny coins pressed into their palms.
The sound of a Ping-Pong ball clunking against a table made her turn her head. Two young girls in similar swimsuits, sisters maybe, smacked the ball across to each other while their feet left trails of sand on the blue wood of the terrace. Her belly fluttered at the sound. The summer after Cris’s dad died, they had been wandering around town when a thunderstorm rolled in. The boy who’d been somber for weeks had grabbed her hand and they took off running and screaming, finding cover under one of the Ping-Pong tables in the small piazza that had been set up for a tournament. They huddled together, laughing and soaked, watching the deluge. She was angry to be wet but thrilled that the storm seemed to shake something loose in him. Then Ellie got chilled and Cris pulled her under his shoulder and wrapped his long arms around her for warmth. The hundreds of summer days of shoreline paddle ball, seashell hunting, and sharing cold bottles of Coca-Cola in the hot sun rose up between them. All those moments of not noticing, then definitely noticing, as your childhood friend turned into a fully adult human right beforeyour eyes, compressed to supernova as they leaned into each other’s lips with the rain beating down over their heads.
“Fior di Fragola.”
Ellie’s stomach gathered in with a zip tie. She turned slightly in the direction of the voice behind her. She didn’t have to guess who would know what kind of ice cream she used to order before she had the chance to think of it herself.
“Not today,” she said.
“Weren’t those your favorite?” Yes. They were her favorite. She loved the tart strawberry coating on the creamy vanilla center. When she was little she loved to look in the mirror after eating one because it left her lips pink and she could pretend it was makeup.
“I don’t remember.”
“Oh,” said Cris, crossing his arms and taking a step closer. His thick forearms pushed his biceps into volleyballs and strained against his T-shirt sleeves. Ellie felt the muscles in her jaw get tighter. She wondered about the conversation she’d overheard him having with Simone. And what was with the disguise? He looked like he was in the witness protection program. She was next in line but didn’t move, and the girl behind the counter looked at her expectantly.
“Are you going to order anything?” he asked. She did not turn around.
“Ciao,” she said, stepping up to the counter in answer. She asked for bruschetta and a bottle of mineral water. The girl put down a ticket and invited her to sit while it was being made. It would only take a minute, she said.
“Or I can wait and bring both orders together?” the girl asked, raising an eyebrow at Cris. Oh no.
“No, no. Non siamo insieme.” Ellie plucked the ticket off thecounter and looked for an empty table. They were most definitely not together. She found the only available table at the farthest end of the terrace and sat with her back to the café. She pulled her laptop out of her tote and checked for a Wi-Fi connection. There were probably a million emails to answer. Even if there weren’t, she would make it seem like she had a million emails to answer. Maybe Cris would eat somewhere else. Or not eat at all. Or maybe a strong wind would carry him off the wooden deck and onto a passing ship heading to Spain.
“Can I sit here?” Cris strode around the other side of the table and stood with his hand on the back of the plastic chair across from her. “It’s the only empty table.”
Ellie kept her face down. “As you like,” she said, not excited to give him more of a view of her than he’d already had today. She wasn’t sure if it was worse that Cris was sitting at her table or that she had no emails aside from summer sale announcements from Zara and COS. She’d made a list of people that had reached out to her in the last year to be guests on the show and organized them in order of who might be the least likely to block her if she called back. The top spot was going to either the guy trying to make cricket a thing in the United States by making a documentary calledAround the Wicketor the sweeper from the Portland Timbers soccer team who’d opened a gluten-free bakery. It was looking grim, to say the least. Despite the shade of the umbrella, Ellie was feeling woozy. She really needed to eat.
“Eccoci.” The girl placed a beautiful plate of food in front of Ellie and something not at all beautiful in front of Cris. Ellie leaned in slightly to see a thin gray line of something bumpy between the halves of a smooth, almost shiny bun.
“What is that?” Her forehead scrunched. She really couldn’t help herself. She had never seen anything like that served here.
“I think it’s a burger.”
“A hamburger?” she asked. “It doesn’t look like a hamburger.”
“It’s just thin,” he said, pulling off the top of the bun to reveal the anemic-looking patty.
“Why is it gray?”
