“Highlights are not fun. In fact, they are a fake for what naturally happens when you’re outside and doing the fun kinds of things that make sunshine hit your hair for hours so it changes colors. Try again.”
“I went to that show with the magician at the Nomad Hotel.”
“You went because one of your sponsors gave you the tickets for Christmas. And you texted me to complain that the popcorn was ‘too truffle-y’ which means ‘no fun at all.’”
“Too much umami bothers me. I taste it all night and can’t sleep.”
“And that’s okay! You have strong preferences. I get it. But you have to kind of let go, you know? You have to forget the rules sometimes and justbe. It’s good for you!”
Ellie hated to admit that Greta was right, but she was totally dead-on, minus the getting in each other’s pants part. Somewhere along the way, Ellie had gotten the idea that staying safe meant staying boring. Trying for fun meant opening the door to the unexpected, and that felt like asking for trouble. Why not keep everything predictable and avoid the possibility of disappointment—or failure? Exceptfailures happened anyway. She turned and looked over her shoulder at the sea stretched out behind her. The afternoon sun lit sparkly peaks across the waves as they gently curled in to the shore. At some point she was going to have to address her fears. Why not now?
“Okay. I’m going to have fun. You’ll see,” said Ellie. “The next opportunity I get, I’m going to take it.”
“Brava!Good. You’re only here for a short time, right? Give things a chance to surprise you. Know what I mean? Okay, I am done talking. I’d better go round up whatever children might belong to me. Pina can only go so long before she gets nervous she’s going to drown in baby germs.” Greta gestured to one of the tables where Renata and Pina were holding one sleeping toddler and cooing over another one in a highchair.
Ellie sat for another moment, still looking down at the beach. Where did her parents go? She squinted and put a hand up to shield her face. Peggy was standing at the shore laughing with Graziella, and she could see her dad’s head bobbing in the water with Simone and some of the others. Everything looked normal. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. It was high time she did, too.
CHAPTER 11
Cris sat on the wooden beach chair balancing a plastic dish on his knees. Not wanting to invite commentary on his lunch choices for today, he decided to grab something to eat down on the beach instead of up on the terrace. He’d ordered what he thought was a basic arugula-toppedbresaolawith shavings ofgrana, but it showed up with a blob of pickled red onion in the middle of it all. Despite his new enthusiasm for foods he hadn’t eaten in a while, onions were still a mortal enemy. Since he was not about to dump them in the sand and bury them like a basset hound, he was picking around them with his plastic fork and knife while trying to politely roll and fold the slices of meat before taking bites. At least it gave him something to do with his hands instead of checking his phone for messages or emails that contained only bad news. Teena had texted him twice already to set up a time to update him on the situation. He hadn’t responded yet, but he had to soon. She would probably allow for one unreturned text, but more than that would put him on the top of her very long shit list.
In fact, he’d only pulled his phone out of his pocket on the way back from the marina to take a photo of the poster advertising the concert at the festival. Maybe by then Ellie would feel like blowing off a little bit of steam and come with him to check it out. Was it a risk to ask her on a Monday to go somewhere with him on Friday when she’d have three more days to decide she still hated him? There was only one way to find out.
“That looks—interesting.” Ellie dropped her tote down under the adjacent umbrella and laid her towel out over the back of the chair next to him. “Didn’t you used to hate onions?” she asked, settling in the seat.
Despite the fact that she usually spoke to him in English and was born in the United States, there were some things about Ellie that were definitely Italian. It was in the way she thought nothing of commenting on his food—something an American would probably find offensive. It was also in the cut of her sunny orange bikini, which was a little bit too small for American beaches and in the way he knew her skin would tan to a color slightly outside of acceptable for the SPF 50 crowd. He was trying not to stare from behind his sunglasses, but he was grateful for every bit of it—even the part where she was going to make fun of his onion hatred.
“Did you come down here to ask me that?”
“No, I came down to relax and do nothing. I think.”
“Well, these are the sweet ones.”
Ellie laughed. “That sounds like something your mother would say when you used to pick them off pizza. Where is she, anyway?”
“Skype calls with some patients this morning. They are a little obsessed with her.”
“She’s pretty amazing at her job. Some of the wives of my podcastguests are devout disciples of her church of cosmetic injectables. The ones who have had the most work are the ones who look like they haven’t had any. I don’t know how she does it.”
“She likes to prove to people that they don’t need surgery. She is very patient.”
“Well, she’d have to be, in your house.” It was fine if she wanted to throw digs at him, as long as she wasn’t scowling like she had been earlier. “Your brothers are coming, right? Are they somewhere training or shooting?”
“They’re training until the last minute before the Paris games. I don’t know when the show starts shooting again.”
“I’m guessing you’re not thinking of being a special guest star onDouble Shotat this point,” she said.
“That’s actually another slight issue in this indelicate slide into retirement. But you came down here to relax. We don’t have to get into it.”
“No, it’s good. It will be good practice to sound like we can have a spontaneous conversation,” she said. He checked her face again to see if she was being sarcastic. She wasn’t.
“Well, when they got the offer to do the show, the only way they would sign the contract is if the producers guaranteed a spot for me. The thing is—I love them, right? And I know this is their way of taking care of me, but being in the media spotlight is torture.”
“Well the show is… it seems like a lot. The only episode I ever watched was just two wet dudes sleeping their way through a trail of the most beautiful people on the planet and like, a lot of palm trees.”
“Yep. That pretty much explains it. I’m guessing you didn’t enjoy the episode.”
“The guy Leo was dating was so perfect, he looked CGI’d and yethe still got dumped because he said he preferred his steak well done when they went out to dinner. I lasted five minutes. The one thing I have in abundance in my life is athletes behaving badly. So no thanks.”
