chapter 23 #2
First, she, Julian, Sloane and Charlotte took a bus to Amalfi. The driver tapped his horn around the blind curves as they
traveled along the narrow, winding highway that connected Positano, Praiano and Amalfi—and other towns on the coast—like the
thread going through a strand of pearls. Then they enjoyed Nutella croissants, which shattered into sweet flakes, and coffee—she
got hot chocolate—at a sidewalk café not far from the huge, ornate cathedral that sat in the middle of the town square.
After that, they walked around the cobblestone streets to visit the surrounding shops before catching a small boat, one that
could only seat six people, at Pennello Pier.
Charlotte and the others had decided to pay for a charter despite there being cheaper ways to get to the grotto.
Lilly had heard Julian say they could even reach it by land.
But Charlotte wanted to spend a couple of hours on the water—not just be ferried back and forth—and Lilly was glad Sloane and Julian had agreed.
To her, being on the boat was one of the coolest things in the world.
The coast was gorgeous from the sea! All the buildings—even the huge cathedrals with their domed tops—looked like miniatures.
And the colorful houses cascading down the cliffs resembled jewels the mountains were pouring into the sea.
Lilly especially enjoyed looking at the ancient towers that’d been built to protect the old villages from pirates. There were
more than she’d ever imagined. The Saracens must’ve been a big problem. The round stone towers—some crumbled, some almost
intact—reminded her of tiny castles. Charlotte said they were built fifteen hundred years ago, which made them almost a thousand
years older than America!
That something could last so long filled Lilly with a sense of wonder. Of all the sights they saw while they were on the boat,
she loved the towers most because they captured her imagination.
But some of the cathedrals in Italy were almost as old, she reminded herself.
The wind flung her hair around as she sat in the bow, the sun causing the water to sparkle and shimmer all around her. She
felt so grown-up in her swimsuit. It was a blue one-piece, not a bikini like her mother had always preferred. But she thought
it was pretty. She was also wearing a cover-up very similar to Charlotte’s—Charlotte had bought them both at the same place—and
the same beach hat as Sloane. From a distance, she probably didn’t look much younger than her sister and her sister’s friend
because she was as tall as they were.
Maybe one day she really would grow into her feet, she thought, examining the bright orange polish on her toes. Just before
they’d left the villa, Charlotte had offered to paint her nails, and they’d turned out so pretty it no longer seemed to matter
that her feet were too big.
“Look at you—grinning like you’ve never been on a boat before,” Sloane said as the outboard hummed steady as a bee. “You’re obviously not seasick.”
She had never been on a boat before. But Sloane already knew that. “Nope.” Standing, she held out her arms like Rose in the movie
Titanic and let the wind ripple through her cover-up. “I love the movement. Don’t you?”
“I do. It’s my stomach that’s not all that excited about it,” she said with a pained expression.
Lilly felt guilty for wishing their trip would continue forever. “Will you be okay? Should we go back?”
“No. The skipper gave me some Dramamine. I should be fine in fifteen or twenty minutes.”
Lilly asked to stop for a swim, and the skipper found a small cove near Positano, where they all jumped into the water.
“Good idea, Lilly,” Sloane said as they cooled off. “This should give the Dramamine time to work.”
Julian had hung out with her a lot at first, but recently she’d been spending most of her time with Sloane. Maybe that was
another reason she was enjoying herself so much. He was with them today. Charlotte was, too, and she wasn’t so preoccupied.
She seemed to have forgotten about her divorce and her book, at least for the day.
After they swam for a while, when Sloane was finally feeling better, they climbed back into the boat and motored to the Emerald
Grotto, which was closer to Amalfi than to Positano. The cave wasn’t as big as Lilly had expected, but she loved the light
hue of the water and smiled happily for a picture with Charlotte, then one with Charlotte and Sloane and a selfie of all four
of them that Julian took because he had the longest arms.
Her sister and her sister’s friends didn’t treat her like a nuisance, she realized. They didn’t act as if they didn’t want
her around, the way so many of her mother’s boyfriends had. They treated her like she was a valued member of the group.
“I’d never even heard of a grotto until I moved here,” Lilly told them as their skipper maneuvered carefully around all the other boats jostling for a turn inside the cave. “Do we have any in America?”
“Good question,” Charlotte responded and checked the internet on her phone. “Apparently, we do,” she said after a quick search.
“Religious grottoes, man-made grottoes and natural ones.”
Lilly wrinkled her nose. “Isn’t the point that they’re natural?”
“You’d think,” Sloane said.
Charlotte tipped the brim of her hat to remove the glare from her screen. “I guess man-made ones are a thing. Says here that
the Midwest has a whole bunch of Catholic grottoes—the largest collection in the world.”
Disappointed that the ride was almost over, Lilly watched the opening of the cave and all the boats waiting around it disappear
from view. “What are Catholic grottoes?”
Charlotte, who’d gone back to reading, looked up. “Grottoes made by German Catholic immigrants, evidently. This article says
they’re considered folk art.”
Lilly tightened the string under her chin so that her hat wouldn’t blow away now that the skipper was going so fast. “I can’t
even imagine what a fake grotto would look like.”
“Maybe you should pull it up on your phone,” Charlotte said.
Lilly blinked. “What phone?”
A smile spread across her sister’s face right before she dug inside her bag and pulled out Sabrina’s phone. “On this phone, which belongs to you now,” she said and handed it over.
Lilly had wanted a phone since forever. “Are you kidding?” She searched her sister’s face to be sure she wasn’t going to add
“while we’re in Italy” or something else that suggested she’d take it back.
“I’m not kidding,” Charlotte said. “It’s all yours.”
“Forever?”
Charlotte laughed. “For the next year, at least. Then you’ll probably want an upgrade.”
A bolt of excitement charged through Lilly. The thin, sleek metal object in her hand signified freedom and the ability to
do so much more for herself. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
The smile on Charlotte’s face looked . . . affectionate. “You’re welcome. I’ve been very excited to give it to you. I was
just waiting for the right moment.”
Lilly knew it was stupid to allow herself to feel so happy. Something terrible always seemed to come right after. But it was
starting to feel as if she still had family in the world, and that maybe her sister wouldn’t abandon her in the end. “You’re the best thing to ever happen to me,” she said and threw her arms around Charlotte.
Charlotte seemed bowled over at first but quickly rallied and returned the hug. “I’m glad,” she said, laughing, “because I’m
not going anywhere.”
Breaking away so she could see Charlotte’s face, Lilly stepped back. “Do you mean it?”
Charlotte lifted Lilly’s hand, the one holding her new phone. “Look at this. Here’s my number,” she said, navigating to Contacts.
“No matter what happens, I’ll only be one call away, from this day until forever.”
Owning a phone, having a way to reach Charlotte at any time, day or night, seemed to offer a safety net, which was something
she’d never had. It also made Lilly feel connected and important to someone—besides a dog. But it was what she saw when she
exited out of her contacts that brought tears to her eyes.
The wallpaper on her new phone was a picture of her with her mother on her last birthday—what had been her favorite day.
Until this one.