“Let’s hope.”
“I’m still in,” he said with a slight nod. “I want to do this.”
She looked back down at her questions. She had wanted him to not freak out about her show, and he didn’t. Now the chaos monster in her brain was inviting her to obsess over whether it was a business or a personal decision. She sighed, choosing to ignore the invitation and remind herself again how important it was to keep her feelings out of this interview. It was so hard when, somewhere in her heart, eighteen-year-old Ellie was still curled up on her bed crying when she opened his final email:You’re right. I think we made a mistake too. See you next summer.Especially when the next summer never came.
“Okay. Great. Let’s start with something easy,” she redirected, blinking a few times to get back in the moment. “Tell me about your interests or hobbies. What do you like to do or what are you excited about? If you do any charity work or volunteer, this would be a great place to talk about it.”
“Still trying to get people to like me, huh?”
“It will certainly benefit you if some of the facts of your situation are not great.”
Cris sat back in the chair and looked down at the court. Ugo stood at the baseline and bounced a tennis ball a few times before lightly tossing it up. He whacked it over the net where it landed out at the sideline.
“OUT!” called Renata.
“You know that’s the opponents’ job, right?” Ugo said, turning to his wife. She shrugged.
Cris shook his head. “I don’t think I’ve had hobbies that are unrelated to training unless it was… well, actually, I can’t think of anything.” He leaned back as the waitress set the coffee down in front of him, plus a plate with two small wafer cookies. “Grazie,” he said with a smile. The waitress flushed and smiled back, and she took two steps backward and almost crashed into a flowerpot overflowing with begonias.
“Charities? Any community stuff?” Ellie asked, eyeing the waitress as she marched back to the café.
“Yes. I did some stuff with a foundation for pancreatic cancer research for a while. I did a few YouTube videos for them and was part of their annual walkathon. Then I did the Swim Across America for Dana-Farber Cancer Institute a few times, too. That was pretty fun.” He took a sip of coffee.
“But you don’t work with them anymore.”
“No, not in a while.”
“Right.” Ellie sighed into her notebook instead of letting any more negative thoughts out of her mouth. She tried to keep the pendulum in her head from swinging right back to the place where Cris was as reliable as a puppy on a white carpet.
“Wait, let’s watch this. It’s set point,” he said, touching the back of Ellie’s hand gently. She picked her head up and leaned toward the court. Graziella returned a ball just over the net where neither Ugo nor Renata could sprint quite fast enough to reach it.
“Brava! Bravissima!” Simone yelled as Graziella won the point for their team. They clinked rackets as they walked to the side of the court for a quick break.
“Looking good,Nonno!” Cris called.
“Only because I’m standing next to her!” Simone called back.
Ellie clapped but wasn’t sure if they were done playing completely. She glanced at the large digital clock above the courts.
“They play another set, I think,” Cris said, following her gaze.
“Right.”
“I’m guessing none of what I told you helps my cause.”
“We can move on to something else.” She went back to her notebook. Hobbies and charities were out. Maybe she should ask about pets or what his favorite movie was. It was starting to sound like she was building him a Tinder profile. “This is hard. You used to be more interesting.”
“When? When I was throwingnespoleat you from the tree in front of your house?” He smiled.
“At least you were demonstrating other skills,” she said, trying not to smile back.
“You wouldn’t have said that then. You would have called me something terrible in English and not spoken to me until lunch.”
“You might be right.” She frowned.
“It just didn’t seem like it was enough,” he said.
“Thenespole?” She cocked her head to the side for effect.
