Wish You Were Italian (21 page)

“So, tomorrow?” Darren asks before he makes the turn back to Manarola. “After your lunch shift?” He grins and I nearly melt into a puddle.

How can I say no? “Where to?”

“Have you been to the beach in Monterosso yet?”

The beach. Darren in swim trunks. Don’t smile, don’t smile. “The beach sounds like a great idea.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The beach is dotted with colored umbrellas and lounging bodies—thankfully, none of them completely nude. Several teens kick soccer balls to one another, and a child near the water flies a kite. I didn’t bring my camera—hello, sand—but the scene is so vivid, it makes me wish I at least had a little point-and-shoot.

Darren spreads out the beach mats and drops his backpack on top of one. As soon as he crosses his arms and grips the hem of his shirt with both hands, I know what’s about to happen. I should look away but I can’t. Abs reveal themselves. One. At. A time. His chest isn’t exactly lacking for hair, but given the amount on his face and head, I expected that. Not that I actively thought of what his chest might look like.

Not often, anyway.

As he wads up his shirt to stow under his backpack, he
glances at me, but I cast my gaze down, suddenly finding the sand-to-pebble ratio of the beach fascinating.

“Don’t you have your suit on?” he asks, pulling off his shoes.

I nod and wait for him to get distracted again before shedding layers, turning my back on him as I pull out my sunscreen and work the cool lotion into my face, down my arms, stomach and legs. A grunt escapes my mouth, the hard to reach spot on my back mocking me.

No. The cliché
Can you rub this on my back?
is most definitely not happening.

Assuming the plan is to soak up some rays and chat, I lie down on my back, hiding the vulnerable strip of unprotected skin, determined not to ask for help. His eyes are on me. I can feel it.

I suck in, flattening out my stomach as much as possible, before turning my head and squinting at him. I was right. He’s staring.

“What?” I ask.

“Do you want me to get your back for you?”

Cringe. “No, I’m fine.”

“Okay, then could you get mine? I don’t really want the striped look you’re going for. A little too trendy for me.” He laughs, snapping the lid shut on his sunscreen bottle. He shakes it hard to force the lotion to the end, every muscle in his body tensing, releasing, tensing, releasing.

My jaw goes slack. He asked me a question. What was it? The cliché come to life? I hesitantly sit up and he’s already on his knees on the end of my mat, back to me.

“Oh. Okay, sure.” I take the bottle from him and smear the
lotion on the middle of his back as fast as I can. Why isn’t it rubbing in? Too much, I took too much.

His body is solid under my fingertips. And tan. And solid. And sweaty. Overstimulation. Accelerated heart rate. Bad thoughts, Pippa. Stop.

The lotion finally blends into his skin and I wipe my hands on my towel.

“That wasn’t so terrible, was it?” Darren twists around and winks. “Now are you going to be stubborn or do you want me to finish your back for you?”

I give in for lack of a reasonable excuse and toss him my higher SPF. He kneels behind me and gently rubs even the places I know he saw me reach myself. When he nears the small of my back, I sit up straight as a board, goose bumps racing down my arms and legs, pulse loud in my ears.

I need a distraction, fast.

A green-and-yellow Hacky Sack lands on Darren’s mat just next to me, and a girl about my age in a string bikini—emphasis on string—prances over to pick it up. She studies me with narrowed eyes, then smiles at Darren.

“Sorry, cutie.”

Darren doesn’t respond. I watch her thighs jiggle their way back to her group until an old man wanders into my line of sight, dripping wet. His little gray swim bottoms are probably smaller than mine, potbelly hanging over the top of them.

I lean toward Darren and whisper, “Take a picture of that. Five euros.”

We both look back at the man just as he sheds his bottoms, revealing, well, everything.

“Oh, sick
out
,” I screech, shrinking down and looking for something to hide under. I’ve seen a few sets of breasts on the beach so far—which is a little uncomfortable, though Darren does a good job pretending he doesn’t see—but this is completely different.

I grab a towel and throw it over my head, laughing uncontrollably. Darren sits down cross-legged, our knees touching, and adjusts the towel to cover both of us. His lips fight back a smile.

“I can’t believe you’re hiding from that fine specimen of a man,” he says. “I’m sure he’d love it if you helped him reapply his sunscreen.”

“Thanks for that visual nightmare!” I’m laughing so hard, I’m crying. I just saw some dude’s thing. Just hanging out there. Morgan is going to die when she hears about this. “Did he put it away yet?” I ask.

Darren peeks out from under the towel. “He’s still changing into his clothes.”

I meet his eyes as I recover, catching my breath. We’re too close. Our lungs-are-sharing-the-same-moist-air close. The thick towel blocks most of the sunlight from overhead, but it reflects off the sand, illuminating our faces from underneath. We sit perfectly still, holding the gaze. This could be it. The moment Darren kisses me. He raises a hand and I hold my breath … but all he does is lift the edge of the towel to look out.

“He’s done now. Aren’t you disappointed?” His laugh is soft and gravelly as he folds the towel back up and lays it on his mat. “I think I may cool off in the water for a few minutes. Do you want to come?” He stands and brushes the sand off his knees.

Darren wet? Yes, please.

I smile and pop right up. “
Andiamo
.”

ASSIGNMENT NUMERO OTTO: FEEL YOUR FEELINGS Write down the first thing that comes into your mind. Short and sweet. No pondering! Just WRITE IT DOWN!

Chiara was right. I like the nice boys. I like Darren
.

Chapter Thirty

Swim in the Mediterranean Sea

“Where’s Bruno been?” I ask Chiara after we close up and head home for the night. Matilde stays behind to do the pesky end-of-day chores like counting her money. “I haven’t seen him all evening.”

“I am not sure,” she says, though the scowl that appears on her face for an instant tells me otherwise.

“You don’t know, or you just don’t want to tell me?”

We power up the steep, poorly lit hill to the apartment, a climb I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll ever get used to. I slow down and pant when we reach the gate, but Chiara keeps trucking along.

“I do not think Bruno would want you to know where he is all the time,” she calls back to me.

“So he’s with a girl.” By her silence I guess she either thinks it would bother me to know, or she just wants me to
think
he’s with a girl so I’ll get mad and forget about him.

But I don’t really feel mad. Should I? I probably would have a few days ago, but now … And I even kissed him just yesterday. Ugh, I am so messed up.

My hand flies to my temple and I rub it.

Chiara stops on the stairs ahead and turns to face me, arms crossed. “What—”

“Never mind,” I manage to say, shaking my head. “Let’s just go to bed.” I pass her up, skipping every other step.

“
Aspetta!
” she calls out, so I obey and wait. “You have not told me about your date with Darren.”

I rush to spit out, “It wasn’t a date.”

“Whatever you say,” Chiara says through one of her wicked smiles, which makes me smile too.

The apartment’s empty—Luca must have gone out too—so we take turns getting ready for bed, and soon I can hear Chiara’s breath slow and deep from her top bunk. I pull the sheet up to my neck and close my eyes. Not comfortable. I roll onto my left side. Still awake. I try my right side and my nightshirt gets twisted tight around my stomach. I groan and sit up to straighten it out. I’m completely wired. My brain won’t shut up.

I made out with an Italian. In his boat. And he’s probably with some other girl right now, doing the same thing. I’m going on a trip with Darren. He rubbed sunscreen on my back. He bit my finger. The crooked pinkie I got from Mom, and she got from Gram.

I miss Gram so much, it hurts. Talking to her on the phone
almost made not seeing her every day even harder. Nevertheless, I’m looking forward to our next call. I can’t believe she’s letting me stay here. For some reason, I feel guilty. She thinks Mom won’t be able to “punish” her, and sure, it won’t be the same as my punishment, but Mom has the ability to make you miserable if she wants to.

Ugh. Too much to process. I’ll never get to sleep at this rate.

I pull my computer out from under the bed—still connected to the Internet since I seem to be the only one using it much lately—boot her up, and sign in to my e-mail. Nine new messages. Two from Mom, the rest from Morgan.

I start with the subject lines from Morgan’s oldest e-mails. The first few are just replies to the same thread, but the newer ones get increasingly desperate.

Open me; I have news; PIPPAAAAA; Where R U?; I’M GOING TO TELL YOUR MOTHER YOUR SECRET; I’M NOT KIDDING

I roll my eyes at her drama and click to compose a new message to Gram first.

To:
Lorelei Mead

From:
Pippa Preston

Subject:
Gram!

How are you? It was so great getting to talk to you and hear your voice. I’m going to try to call you tomorrow, but I can’t sleep, so I’m reaching out to you the only way I can right now. I need your advice. You always know what to do.

There’s this guy. I think he likes me. Maybe. How can I tell?

And I just realized I’m going to miss your birthday. I’m so sorry!

I love you,

Pippers

Skype chirps from my program dock and I rush to mute the volume. Chiara doesn’t stir. The little box pops up on my screen. Morgan’s calling me from her pumpkin-colored room, the sun streaming in from her window.

Her mouth moves, but since I’ve got her muted, I hear nothing. I put my finger to my lips, then mouth, “Just a minute!” I slip into a pair of flip-flops and carefully tiptoe my way through the living room, directing the long cord behind me. I steal a peek at the couch-bed. Neither of the boys are there. I climb the little spiral staircase up to the terrace, squeeze the cord under the door, and sprawl out on one of the lawn chairs.

When I glance back at the screen, Morgan’s not the only one I see. My mother is next to her. Shock kicks through my whole body. I turn up the volume.

“Mom? What are you doing at Morgan’s house?”

“Nice to see you too, Pippa.” She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. Something’s off. Maybe I hurt her feelings? I didn’t really think that was possible.

“I’m sorry,” I say, smoothing back my hair. “Hi.”

“Mrs. Arrant and I are hosting a tea,” she says, waving her hand dismissively like I should have known. “How are you?” She leans in close to the monitor. Her eyes are on my image on
the screen, not on the camera above, so it doesn’t even really feel like she’s talking to me. “Are you well? Enjoying yourself?”

Enjoying myself? How am I supposed to answer that? She knows I hated the idea of going to that summer program, but she’ll want to hear that I like it better than I expected to. That I’m making an effort to actually learn something. She can’t know that I’m having the time of my life somewhere else.

My inner moral compass urges me to tell as much of the truth as I can. “It’s getting easier,” I say. A breeze catches a few strands of my hair and it falls in front of my eyes.

“Are you outside?” Mom asks.

“Yes, ma’am,” I say, instantly regretting such a formal tone. She’ll suspect I’m hiding something if I suck up to her too much. “I didn’t want to wake my roommate. It’s pretty late over here.”

Mom points to the face of her watch and counts ahead seven hours. “Oh, I’m sorry. You should get to sleep.”

“Probably,” I say, though I’m dying to talk to Morgan.

“But first, tell me about your roommate.” Mom actually sounds interested. Though my paranoid brain wonders if she’s just trying to make me slip up. Maybe she suspects? “What’s her name?”

“Claire,” I blurt out in a hurry, miraculously recalling that Claire is the English version of Chiara. I have no idea if Italians go to the program I’m supposed to be in, so I can’t take any chances.

“Do you get along?” Morgan chimes in. “What’s she like?”

“Oh yeah. She’s great! Very … straightforward. Definitely not afraid to tell you like it is.” Or how she sees it, anyway.

“Well, isn’t that nice,” my mother says as a statement. “I’d better run back downstairs and let you two girls catch up before you go to bed. Pippa, I’m so glad we finally got to talk face-to-face.” She’s still looking at the screen and not the camera.

“I’m sorry.” I shake my head and stifle a laugh at her inexperience with this type of technology. “Things are really busy around here, and it’s hard to find the time. I’ll try to be better about it.”

“Okay. As long as we know you’re safe.” She blows a kiss to the screen and disappears.

Morgan stares at the webcam with wide eyes and mouths, “I’m SO sorry.” Her door clicks and she fires off a mile a minute. “I didn’t know what else to do! She asked if I could try to get ahold of you and I never dreamed you’d have your computer on at this exact moment!” She leans in and whispers, “She’s sort of pushy.”

I snort. “Ya think?”

“I’ve been needing to talk to you so bad!”

“So your subject lines said. I haven’t opened them yet though. What’s going on?”