17. Jax
SEVENTEEN
jax
I followed my phone’s directions through the cobblestone streets, passing shop after shop. Having landed in Palermo, I caught the train to Cefalù two days after most of the other guests had already arrived in Sicily, so I was on my own finding the beach lido.
As I passed restaurants and a gelateria, I wondered, not for the millionth time, what Natalie thought of Sicily so far. I wondered if she was having a good time. If she thought of me at all. For my part, I hadn’t thought of anything but her.
The sale? Sure, it was moving forward. But instead of being happy about the fact, I dreaded every second. If I couldn’t convince Natalie to negotiate with the purchaser, I was screwed. Seducing her away from the property seemed like a good idea, but as I got to know her, victory by those means would only make me feel like shit.
Could I do it?
Potentially. But that wasn’t my goal anymore. Sure, I wanted to be with her. But not like that. I needed to make her talk to me, something I’d been unsuccessful at since the night in her apartment. Aside from two very impersonal emails and one even less personal text, all land related, Natalie refused to communicate with me.
“Buongiorno,” I said to a man standing just outside a shoe shop at the edge of town.
“Buongiorno,” he responded kindly. I’d always found Italians, Sicilians especially, extremely gracious, and this man was no exception.
“Dove il Lido Pura Vita?” I asked.
“Di qua,” he said, pointing to the right in the fork I’d come to that my phone didn’t think existed. “Alla spiaggia.”
Though my Italian was rusty, I at least knew in which direction to head.
“Grazie,” I said, moving along.
“Prego.”
A block later, it became clear where to go. So this was why people loved Cefalù. Leaving the quaint town with its Duomo and winding side streets, just a short walk away it became an entirely different experience. With a street of sidewalks lined with restaurants on one side and the beach on the other, suddenly Cefalù had turned into a beach town. I passed lido after lido filled with people grabbing a bite to eat or an aperitivo as they took a break from sitting under the umbrellas packed together like sardines. Mine was still a half mile away, and every step I took toward it, I wondered what she’d say. No doubt Natalie knew I was arriving today, but did she care?
Why she wouldn’t work with the property owner, I couldn’t say. Did she not believe the reports and worry about the environmental impact on the land? Or did she just not want to relinquish it under any circumstances?
Again, my gut told me the answer, and it was the latter. Seemed like I may have actually met someone as stubborn as me.
“Whoa, look who it is.”
The groom himself spotted me as I made my way from street level down the ramp toward the lido. Like the others, this one included a building and deck right on the beach filled with people eating and drinking. But unlike the others, there weren’t many locals here. It seemed as if Gian and Mazzie must have rented the whole thing out for their pre-wedding party. Tomorrow was the rehearsal dinner, and the day after, the wedding. But today was for the party people, and from the look of it, they were already in full swing.
The mid-afternoon heat had most of the guests either under their umbrellas on the beach or on the deck with just a few brave souls sitting in full sun.
I was most interested in one guest in particular, but I didn’t see Natalie anywhere.
“Glad you found us,” Gian said as I approached him and Nate. “Welcome to Sicily.”
I shook hands with both men, still looking, but finding no sign of her.
“How’s it going so far?” I asked. “Seems like the party’s in full swing. Did you rent out the whole place?”
“Actually, a friend of mine did. The woman I worked for when I stayed here. Pulled some strings, as it were.”
Gian had traded odd jobs at a local resort with a friend of the family for an extended stay, which was when he’d met Mazzie last summer.
“Nice. Looks like I need to play catch-up.”
“Hell yeah.” Nate nodded to the bar. “Go grab a drink.” Then, as I was about to walk away, “She’s on the beach with Zoe and the girls.”
I stopped. Turned to look at Nate and Gian, who both grinned knowingly at me. Playing dumb, I pretended I had no idea who they were talking about. “She?”
The two of them burst out laughing. Ignoring the pair of the guys, I grabbed myself a Peroni since it looked like they already had fresh drinks. Making my way to the edge of the deck, I took in row after row of bright blue umbrellas. Beyond those, blue and white striped ones marked a different beach lido.
It always amazed me when people talked about Italian beaches. To me, though the country was absolutely beautiful, the packed beaches weren’t a selling point. I preferred to spread out a bit. But there was a certain beauty to the crystal-clear water of the Tyrrhenian Sea with hordes of umbrellas and beachgoers that gave it a distinctly Italian flair.
Or Sicilian, rather. The two were not the same.
There she is.
As I watched, Natalie and the other ladies began to pack up their belongings. Damned if the woman wasn’t wearing a white bikini, her tan giving evidence to the fact that she’d been here a few days. Hair piled on top of her head, Natalie was a total knockout. I imagined myself grabbing that waist and pulling her toward me. Imagined lifting her so Natalie’s bare legs wrapped around me.
She looked up.
It was, as always between us, as if we were the only two people in the world. The party, the beachgoers...everything faded away as Natalie stared at me, and I at her. A second later, she snapped out of her surprise and turned away, giving me a very enticing view of her backside just before pulling a sundress over her head. Also white, with spaghetti straps.
As the women made their way toward the deck, I wondered if she’d come over to me. The silent question was answered a few seconds later when she made a wide circle around where I stood and headed toward the bar.
“You two have the strangest relationship,” Gian said, joining me.
“It’s a strange situation,” I admitted. “Every day we get closer to the sale, the more pissed she is at me. Plus...” I looked at him, wondering how much the girls talked. “There’s the whole matter of a bet between us.”
Gian’s expression gave away the fact that he knew of it already. “Mazzie may have mentioned that.”
“I’m sure she did.”
Now with drinks in their hands—looked like Aperol spritzes all around—the women all stood in a circle. Drinking. Laughing. But Natalie did not look my way.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. Was a little busy this past week or so.”
“Understandable. You nervous?”
“Nah. Mazzie’s the one for me. No doubt about that. I can’t wait to call her my wife.”
I couldn’t help smiling. “Not words I ever thought would come out of Gian DeLuca’s mouth.”
“Love does strange things. Like putting a huge land deal on the line to get a girl to talk to you. That sort of thing.”
“I am not,” I said that last word emphatically, “in love.”
“Maybe not. But there’s no doubt something is brewing between the two of you.”
That I wouldn’t deny.
She did look then. I raised my beer bottle, and for a second, I thought she’d do the same, in a silent toast. Instead, Natalie scrunched her nose as if something smelled bad and turned back to her friends.
“I take it things aren’t going well between you at the moment?”
“Understatement,” I said, finishing my beer. “I’m trying to convince her to let the sale go through. She’s been through all of the paperwork and knows the environmental impact will be minimal. And I’ve spoken to the potential buyer who will allow her to keep the rowing program there throughout the summer so it’s not displaced. And offered to find a new spot for it.”
“Good luck with that. I can’t see Natalie ever willingly agree to the sale. If she digs her heels in, word on the street is that you’ll lose the bet and drop the bid.”
I looked at Gian. “That was the bet.”
“You’re nuts, man.”
“I know. But it was the only way I could think of to get her to talk cordially to me. But after the public meeting, she was convinced I was backing out of my word.”
“As if you would ever consider such a thing. She must not know you very well.”
“Eh. I was working on remedying that when she stopped talking to me.”
“Well, if it’s any consolation, and I’ll deny saying this if you ever repeat it, Mazzie says it’s killing Natalie not to talk to you.”
I couldn’t say I was surprised. Clearly there was a “thing” between us. The damn inlet was just getting in the way.
“Good to know. Thanks, Gian. Need a beer?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. Thanks.”
Heading to the bar once again, I wasn’t surprised when Natalie pretended to see someone she wanted to talk to, making a beeline in the other direction to avoid me.
It went like that for more than an hour. Which was fine. Natalie could walk away from me all she wanted. But eventually, I would talk to her.
We had some things to discuss, and she couldn’t avoid me all night.