Wish You Weren't Here

Chapter 16

Ava

There is a lull in the conversation as Vincenzo and his apprentice, Raffi, set down the final plate on our table before wishing us an emphatic “Buon appetito” and hurrying back to work. To this point, I’ve done a damn good job of not thinking of Ethan with the redhead. I deserve an award for not simmering. Accolades. Someone should compliment me.

“You look very lovely tonight, Ava,” Massimo says.

Damn it. Not him. Someone else should compliment me. Someone who wasn’t born decades post-Bieber.

I shove a bite of heaven into my mouth and nod my thanks to the teeny-bopper warily, reminding myself not to look directly into his eyes. James punches his cousin on the arm and I send him a glare. I don’t need another rescue. He’s already got home court advantage and a fifty point lead after seeing me in the fetal position with zero dignity left intact. I don’t do outward displays of emotion. The only way I keep my feelings is bottled, but somehow the man I can’t escape got to see that bottle crack and leave a messy Ava-shaped puddle beneath the pay phone. Honestly, at this point there’s no way to remedy the impression I’ve made on this man. So I’ll focus on the food.

I’m eating rabbit. No. I’m eating pork stuffed with rabbit. I spin the fork in front of my eyes, marveling at the combination that has just sent dopamine rushing to my brain like a jackpot. It’s the Italian turducken. But oh so much more.

“Ava,” Franco begins, pointing his fork at Leo beside him, who is chewing so slowly that I wonder if his tooth has fallen out and he’s trying to find it. “Did you tell Leo that your mother is Annette Barrett?”

Leo freezes. His eyes open and he swallows the bite he’d been so carefully enjoying.

“No,” he says, his voice dipping on the O. “That cannot be.”

He narrows his eyes at me and I look to Franco, who is nodding and smiling at him. Leo is lifting his cute little reading glasses onto his nose. Studying me like I’m an ancient illuminated manuscript. He sighs. “Mamma mia, certo. I did not see it. But there”—he points with two fingers—“gli occhi—sono essati.”

I’m looking between Franco and Leo with a cheek full of rabbit-stuffed pork. They are rambling in Italian so quickly I can’t even pick up the spaces between the words and sentences. I look to James for help. And immediately see that he will be none.

He’s gazing at me with a sort of intense awe that I’d love to take credit for.

“Your mother?” he whispers.

I nod, remembering I never really clarified why the hell I was asking about her last night. He’s obviously having an art nerd moment. Poor guy.

Leo laughs and pulls his attention away from his friend and back to me. His hands are a whirlwind of movement. They are giving me vertigo.

“How appropriate, then, that you should be placed in this program, where your mother studied all those years ago,” he says, nodding. “It is fate, no?” His eyes are twinkling so brightly that I can’t help but think of that star that Jiminy Cricket has to make a wish on. Or is it Pinocchio? “Tell me, cara. How is she? I can only hope she visits us while you are here!”

I swallow the lump of pig-rabbit and stare at him. Words, of any language, are eluding me. They always do when it comes to my mom.

“She’s,” I try. When was the last time I had to say these words? “She’s—um—no longer with us,” I finish, looking down at the most delicious thing I’ll never eat. My appetite has flown the coop. Or my appetite has flown to a neighboring coop, because the wine is suddenly looking pretty appealing despite my low thrumming headache.

“Ahh, Ava. I am so sorry, cara. So very sorry,” Leo tells me. Nina is rubbing my back in a way that makes me want to curl up in her lap and sleep for days, and Franco is topping off my wine glass.

“It’s okay,” I lie. “Please, just eat before your food gets cold.”

I want to ask a thousand questions. About my mom. About her art. About it all. But, watching the light in Leo’s eyes fade into dullness after informing him of her loss, stopped me in my tracks—reminded me of how Dad’s heart had plunged into deep freeze with the same news. Yet to be thawed despite my attempts to be a human blowtorch.

I’ll ask my questions later. When I’m not still spiraling from the pictures of Ethan and Red. When James isn’t gawking at me like I’m the descendant of Van Gogh. Now is not the time to go traipsing through my mom’s Walter Mitty shit.

Leo meets Nina’s eyes beside me and nods once before returning to his plate with less enthusiasm than before. I want him to enjoy his magic truffle thingies. That was the plan.

But there I go. Ruining a perfectly amazing dinner with my inability to handle my shit. According to my ex-grief counselor, I’d never be able to handle my shit unless I let myself grieve. Whatever that means. When she—after she passed, it had been so much easier to jump back into school. Create the plan. Check those boxes. Dive right into the life that I could save and somewhat control—my own.

And I’m here, aren’t I? Fulfilling that promise I made to her. That has to count for something. Some sort of grief step on the list. Maybe even two.

I look up to find James is still staring at me with that same awe. No sadness or pity there—thank goodness. Just some sort of misplaced wonder.

I take a long sip of wine and glare at him over the rim of my glass.

“Do you draw or paint?” he asks softly, studying my hand around the stem of the wine glass as if he might find the answer to his question on my fingers.

I place the glass back on the table and slip my fingers back into my lap beneath the napkin, then shake my head.

“Neither,” I tell him, crossing my arms over my chest. He tilts his head. Narrows his eyes as if I might be hiding something.

I could add presently. I don’t draw or paint, presently. Or even since. I could clarify with since. But that just opens up this li’l moment for further conversation, and we are already well beyond our daily limit of pleasant words betwixt us.

Nina leans in from beside me and whispers, “You seem exhausted, cara. If you’d like to head out early, I can make your apologies to Vincenzo and bring you home the tiramisu.”

Mio Dio. Tiramisu. The Italian word for mouthgasm.

Sit across from James’s questioning and intense gaze for the rest of the evening and avoid awkward conversation about my mother, or have Nina-room-service deliver billowy clouds of mascarpone being drowned in fresh, hot espresso after I take a triple-headed shower to wash off Ethan’s potential betrayal?

Though the idea of being left alone to my thoughts is almost as terrifying as the way James is looking at me.

I lower my eyes to my lap, and Nina sees right into my exhausted, battered brain.

“Ava, I think you need to go rest,” she says loud enough for all to hear.

Not a single person argues with Nina. In fact, they all say their goodbyes as warmly and casually as possible, and get right back to their food.

My apologies and gratitude are waved away, and I’m almost to the archway when I hear Nina’s decisive tone pipe up again.

“James, you will walk her, no?”

Oh, Nina. You sneaky, sneaky woman.

“And miss dessert again? I don’t think—”

I keep moving, pick up the pace, too emotionally exhausted to witness the standoff behind me between James and his aunt, but I can’t help regretting my decision to not look back when I hear the distinct and gratifying sound of someone being smacked in the back of his hollow head.

Naturally, that joyful noise is followed by unwanted but familiar footsteps.