11
MY SISTER IS CURRENTLY AT AN UNDISCLOSED HOTEL ON THE AMALFI COAST. Undisclosed, because she doesn’t know where she is, since she didn’t book it. She tries and fails to find the name in her room, but it’s the type with a butler, so there isn’t anything as pedestrian as a room service menu or branded notepad. There’s just a sleek phone without any buttons that magically summons anything she needs. Even me. I’m flattered she remembered my phone number so our call could be connected.
“You sound stressed, Ellie,” she says. “You should take the summer off.”
For my sister, summer is not a season or a verb—summer is her life. She bops around from location to location, taking so many vacations that it doesn’t make sense to have a home base. She didn’t until this apartment, which was only purchased in February, right after she found out she was pregnant. It was her version of settling down, even though she, physically, was settling into a first-class cabin on her way to Europe just days after closing. Staying in one place makes me anxious, she’d said. Anxiety is bad for the baby.
Months after that came the tearful phone call. The house manager quit. The renovation is stressing me out. Stress is bad for the baby. Would you stay there while it’s being completed? You’re the only person I trust to make sure it goes smoothly. I want it to be perfect.
I’d like to think it took more than a single phone call for me to cave, but I turn into the plushiest of doormats when it comes to my sister. By the time the call ended, her tears had mysteriously turned into a chirping Yay, I knew I could count on you! And I was booking a one-way plane ticket to the city I hate.
Penelope says I need to start creating healthy boundaries, but I promised my mom I would take care of my sister. No matter what.
When I’m gone, all you’ll have is each other.
I remind myself of that promise as my teeth grind. “I can’t take the summer off. I have a job, remember?”
I can imagine her frowning, tiny lines forming wherever the premature Botox hasn’t settled. “Can’t they find someone else to do the movie reviews?”
My sister thinks I write about movies. It was the easiest way to explain why I was always reading scripts and typing away at my laptop. Not that she ever cared enough to do a quick Google search to find out that I, Elle Leon, am not, in fact, a movie critic.
It’s not that I want to lie to my sister about my career, or that she would care at all really, unless I wrote a movie incorporating all Real Housewives universes. It’s the fact that she has an unfortunate habit of not being able to keep her mouth shut, mixed with regularly speaking to the one person who made me want to be anonymous to begin with.
“Nope!” I say cheerfully, smiling broadly at the wall like a horror movie character, because the psych class I took freshman year of college said it would trick me into improving my mood. Then, before she can say anything else, I cut in with “How’s Pierre?”
“Ask him yourself,” she says. “You’re on speaker.”
My smile strains. Great. It’s only been five hundred times that I’ve asked her not to do that. “Hi, Pierre,” I say, trying to summon an iota of excitement.
He mumbles a reply with about the same level of enthusiasm. It’s not that there’s anything that wrong with him. It’s just that before my sister met him—on a vacation, of course—she was weeks away from starting her master’s degree in art history. She dreamed of becoming a curator. All that changed when Pierre entered the picture. In some ways, their vacation never ended.
Sometimes I wonder if that’s why they travel all the time. Maybe they’re afraid that if they ever stay in one place long enough, they’ll realize they only really work in paradise and not in the real world. Like the contestants from The Bachelor who are absolutely shocked to discover that the love that blossomed during weeks on a beach with endless cocktails doesn’t hold up when taxes, kids, jobs, and distance come into play.
Mom would have hated Pierre. She would have hated the nonstop fun-and-games playtime that my sister’s life has become.
Isabella Leon valued hard work and independence, never relying on someone else for financial stability. She had found that out the hard way and had made sure both of her daughters would learn from her mistakes.
I love my sister more than anyone—but sometimes, I wonder how we could both be raised by the same woman and have turned out so differently.
I ask Pierre if he knows which hotel they’re at. He does not. I would insist on my sister sharing her location with me, but she left her phone at the last resort, when she decided social media and texts were toxic. And toxicity is bad for the baby.
“Don’t worry, Ellie,” she says in a singsong voice. “You worry too much.”
Of course I worry. I worry so much it feels like there’s a permanent knot in my gut.
“Besides, we’re on to the next location in the morning.”
“Which is?”
“Sicily.”
“I don’t assume you know the hotel . . . ?”
They don’t.
“I think it’s a villa,” Pierre says unhelpfully.
I ask for the name of the travel company they used to book everything, but he doesn’t know that either.
“Ask Paola,” he says. Paola is their assistant. I’m not sure what, exactly, she assists with, because neither of them has a job. Also, I’m pretty sure Paola has my number blocked.
“Are you sure this much travel is okay?” I ask, trying to keep my voice light, because negativity is, you guessed it, bad for the baby.
“Yep! Dr. Connors says it’s fine as long as I avoid boats.”
I wince. They are traveling every few days, up through her delivery date. She says it’s like a roulette to see where their child will be born in the world. She thinks that’s funny.
It gives me hives whenever I think about it.
“So,” she says. “How’s the contractor?”
“Luke’s fine,” I say. “I already told you that the renovations are going—”
“No,” she says, and I know her well enough to hear the smile shaped around the word. “I mean how is he ?”
And, because I truly know my sister, I close my eyes tightly and whisper-yell into the phone: “Cali. You didn’t hire him and ask me to move here to supervise to try to set us up. Right? ”
“No! Of course not!”
Relief floods through my bones. “Good, because—”
“Though, you know, Pierre and I were talking . . . and we just thought it would be so romantic and so good for you if—”
“Oh my god, Cali!” I say, then look around to make sure Luke is not right behind me. “That’s so presumptuous, so invasive, so unprofessional —” I pause. “Do you even need renovations done?” I wouldn’t put it past my sister to literally rip the wallpaper down and floors up just for an excuse to manufacture a love story for me.
I am almost certain she’s rolling her eyes right now. “ Yes, Elle,” she says in a voice that makes my blood boil. “The entire apartment was entirely too gauche. It would have clashed with the Calder we got in Amsterdam.”
You made a promise to your mother on her deathbed, you made a promise to your mother on her deathbed, you made a promise—
“I’m hanging up now. Please have Paola send me the rest of your itinerary. Love you.”
Deep breaths. I’m in the middle of doing a child’s pose over my first act, when I hear a throat clear in front of me.
Of course Luke is standing there, studying me as though I might be about to contort like a ghost and crawl up the wall. “We’re taking lunch,” he says.
I just nod and watch the three men walk out of the apartment.
My sister really tried to create a forced proximity situation with me and the contractor she hired to renovate her apartment. Of course. Her life is a never-ending summer, a continuous Ferris wheel joyride; she does things only because they’re fun, without thinking about the consequences or about anyone other than herself. She really thinks of me and everyone else around her like board game figurines she can move around anywhere she wants for her own enjoyment.
I go back down into child’s pose and sigh against my thighs. I can’t even be upset at her.
Cali used to have ambitions. She used to care about other people. She used to follow my mother’s lead. We used to be close. She never would have changed if it wasn’t for me and my own bad decisions.
It all went downhill when I went against my mother’s wishes.
“SO, HOW’S OUR COUPLE DOING?”
I’m at my favorite table at my favorite coffee shop and have almost dropped a blueberry scone I would sell an organ for on the floor.
“Lucky for you I caught this,” I say, waving the teardrop-shaped pastry at him. Then I take another small nibble and thank celestial forces for butter and sugary crust.
“I would have gotten you another one,” he says, staring at the pastry as if trying to figure out what about it is so special.
I delicately place it back onto its plate, next to the fork and knife the barista gave me but that I decided not to use because I’m a goblin and don’t want to lose any crumbs from cutting.
“This was the last one,” I say slowly. “They only ever make them on the weekends. They’re always gone by eight fifteen, so I wait in front of the door before they open to make sure I get one.”
He blinks. Stares at the pastry, then back at me.
“It’s that good?” “It’s better than you could possibly imagine. And no, I’m not letting you try it. Show up at seven forty-five tomorrow if you want one.”
With that, he gets up and leaves me alone with my pastry.
Happily, I pick it back up and take another bite. I close my eyes and focus on the crunchy sugar on top and buttery crust and crumbly inside. The taste elicits a moan I would be embarrassed by if the shop wasn’t empty and I wasn’t sitting in the corner, in my favorite chair by the window and outlet.
“So that’s what that sounds like.”
I startle, and this time I do drop my pastry. It lands on my plate and breaks into a puzzle.
Parker Warren is sitting in front of me, his eyes darkened in a way that makes my throat feel tight.
“You—you left, ” I say, feeling my face go red.
“To order the worst of coffees, ” he says. He reaches over and takes one of the small pieces my scone has broken into.
He doesn’t break eye contact as he slowly puts it into his mouth. Chews.
“It is good,” he says.
I’m still frozen in mortification when I hear the barista call his name and watch him casually walk over, get his drink, and sit back down.
“So.” He takes a sip. “How’s our couple doing?”
I finally find my voice. “ Our couple isn’t doing anything.”
“Fine. Your couple.”
They’ve just been introduced on set and are about to go to their first filming location, but I don’t tell him that. Instead, I say, “Don’t you have a job or something?”
“You’re up.”
“Excuse me?”
“I frolicked in Central Park and went to the High Line. Tonight, I need my girlfriend.”
I raise an eyebrow at him.
“ Fake girlfriend.”
“For what?”
“Me and some friends have a monthly basketball game when we’re all in town. Their girlfriends usually join.”
“You have friends?” I deadpan.
“Surprising, I know.” He takes another piece of my pastry, and I almost stab him with my fork. “They’re not my closest friends,” he admits. “I suspect one or more of them are selling stories about me to the press, actually.”
My jaw goes slack. “And you still hang out with them?”
He shrugs a shoulder. “I’ve had friends do worse,” he says, and for some reason that makes me sad.
Then I mentally berate myself. Poor little billionaire? I don’t think so.
“If the press is going to believe this”—he motions between us—“the people around me need to believe it too.” It makes sense.
A basketball game? I can handle a basketball game.
He gives me the time and address, then finally leaves me alone with my pastry.