25
PENELOPE’S ON A PLANE BACK TO LA. SITTING IN MY KITCHEN, WITH 90 PERCENT of my screenplay printed out, I get the courage to turn my phone on. I’m bombarded by notifications. Dozens of calls from numbers I don’t recognize, texts from long-lost acquaintances.
Then, strangely, it starts to ring.
It’s Paola.
I look on the call log. She’s called four times in the last hour, each one going straight to voicemail.
“Is she okay?” I say, because Paola has never willingly called me in my life.
“She’s going into labor!” Paola says. “We’ve been calling you for hours!”
The unknown numbers. I thought it’d all been reporters but—
“What do you mean, she’s going into labor?” My voice is a scream. No—she’s due the third week of September. It’s way too early. I had planned to fly from LA, weeks after my screenplay was due.
I drop my script all over the floor. I knock a piece of art on the wall down as I clutch against it for stability. It crashes against the hardwood.
There’s banging on my door. “Elle. Elle, are you okay?” I don’t say anything, I can’t, I’m breathing too quickly. I couldn’t move if I wanted to. “I’m coming in,” he says, and the door slams open.
Parker’s in front of me in an instant.
“You need to get here now,” Paola says. “She won’t stop asking for you.” She gives me the address for the hospital and hangs up.
My hands are shaking as I race through my phone. Parker is on his knees, picking up my screenplay, page by page.
Tears blur my vision. “No. No. ”
He kneels in front of me. “Elle, what’s wrong?” he says, his voice the only steady thing around me.
“My sister is in labor. She needs me. I—I have to be there for her. But it’s the middle of the night, the next flight gets there in twelve hours, and then I’ll have to take a connection, and I’ll be too late! It’s all too late, and I—”
“My jet can be here in an hour,” Parker says.
I blink. “You have a jet?”
He nods.
I shake my head. “Jets—jets are horrible for the environment.”
“I’ll buy double the carbon credits. I always do,” he says.
“No, that doesn’t make it better,” I say. I lean my head against the wall. I shouldn’t have turned my phone off, I should have been there for her. What am I going to do? If only I hadn’t—
“I’ll sell it,” he says, completely serious. “This will be its last trip. I’ll never ride in a jet again. I’ll buy the carbon credits, and I’ll sell it as soon as we land. Or I’ll give it to a charitable organization to use. Whatever you want.”
What? I shake my head. “No, Parker,” I say. “I don’t want you to do that just because you think I want you to.”
“I’m not,” he says. “I’m doing it because it’s the right thing to do.” He’s kneeling in front of me. “Please, Elle. Let me help you.” He offers his hand.
And I take it.
PARKER’S JET IS ENORMOUS.
The entire trip, I’m facing the window, trying not to think about whether I’ll be too late and how badly my sister needs me.
I remember big brown eyes . . . looking for me. Cali, searching for me at the school pickup line. Cali, awake before I was, asking if I could make her French toast because it was Saturday. Cali, begging me not to tell Mom that she had left her textbooks in her locker. Me, driving to her middle school in Mom’s car late at night, to go get them.
Cali didn’t talk to me for a week after I told her I was moving across the country for college. But you’re supposed to stay with me. Always. Mom didn’t understand her. Without me as a buffer, they fought more. Isabella Leon had high standards and didn’t understand how Cali could skip school to go to the beach. How she didn’t seem to care about her grades.
I promised to visit, but the flights were expensive. As she entered high school, she became more distant. Colder. Soon, instead of calling me every night, I was the one trying—and failing—to reach her.
When Mom got sick, Cali barely talked to me about it. After the funeral, she went on vacation after vacation, as if she could outrun her grief.
We fought. Disagreed. Went weeks without speaking.
I should have had more empathy for her. I should have called her more, even if she didn’t answer. I should have tried to understand her, even if I didn’t understand her choices.
Now, she’s alone . . . asking for me. And I’m not there.
“Try to get some rest,” Parker says gently. He offers me the bedroom. I refuse, and so does he.
We just sit in silence until we land.
The moment we touch down in Palermo, Parker tells the attendant and pilots, “This was the last trip. Park it until further instructions, please, and I’ll have your tickets home sent to you.” Then he helps me down the stairs without a second look back at his jet.
The car is moving too slowly, I think, gripping the seat rest, looking down at the time. It’s only been seven hours since Paola called me. Even if there had been a flight available, I never could have made it here this quickly, I know that. I think maybe I should thank Parker for helping me, for flying all this way with me, but I’ll do that later. All I can think about is my sister.
We race into the hospital, and it’s a blur. Getting into sterile clothing. Big brown eyes . . . widening when they see me. Standing by her side for hours as she pushes and pushes, contractions making her scream. Her nails digging into my arm. Her face reddening with effort.
Then a sound I’ll never forget for my entire life, a cry that changes everything.
And a baby.
Cali’s smiling as the baby is placed against her chest. Pierre is there, looking so happy and in love with my sister that I decide, from this moment forward, I have no choice but to like him.
When the baby is passed to me, I hardly breathe. It’s a girl.
Her name is Isabella.
I don’t mean to cry. I’ve cried entirely too much already. But I do. I’m so full of happiness, I don’t know how it can fit inside of me.
Parker is in the waiting room. He stands as soon as he sees me and visibly slumps with relief at the smile on my face.
“Do you want to meet her?” I ask. He does.
And it does entirely too much to me to see him holding a baby, a baby I now love more than anything else in this world. Isabella is so small in his arms, but he’s careful. He rocks her back and forth, until she falls asleep.
We go back into the waiting room, to let my sister rest. Pierre and Paola begin to pack up their stuff.
“Thank you,” I tell Parker. “I—I’m really glad I didn’t miss that. Also, thanks for hacking into the door in the apartment?”
I realize he could have done that the night I got locked out. He seems to read my thoughts, because he says, “I learned after that night. In case it ever happened again.”
“Well, thank you,” I say, meaning it.
“It was the least I could do, Elle,” he says. He doesn’t say anything else, and I’m grateful.
Paola, despite her deep dislike of me and all my phone calls, is incredible at her job. She has a house rented and full of everything for the baby by the time we’re out of the hospital. The next days are a blur of happiness, baby cries, and way too much feeding.
I haven’t spent this much time with my sister in years. I’m by her side most of the time, taking the baby when she needs rest, helping her change diapers when Pierre is out getting more supplies.
Parker cooks us all food. He goes to local markets, and we sit together for dinner. Pierre tries to talk to Parker about crypto and machine learning, and he’s surprisingly patient.
“You don’t have to stay,” I tell Parker. “I know you’re busy.”
“Do you want me to leave?”
I answer honestly. “No.”
“Let me know if that changes.”
We sleep in separate rooms, but every morning, he knocks on my door with a fresh latte. Italian cappuccinos don’t have enough milk in them for me, so he bought a machine, carried it home, and learned to make them himself. “I FaceTimed Jeremy from the coffee shop,” he says, “and watched tutorials online.”
He holds Isabella when my arms start to hurt and my sister and Pierre are asleep.
“Do you want kids?” he asks me one night.
I try not to melt at the sight of him holding Isabella gently against his chest. “I do,” I say. “But not for a few years. I’m too selfish right now. I want a few more years of being selfish.” I glance at him. “Do you?”
“I do. In a few years . . . I do.”
I’m helping my sister put Isabella to bed and study her as we slowly leave the room.
“You’re happy,” I say. “I’ve never seen you so happy.”
She nods. “I am. I’m not like you, Elle,” she says, when we settle in the family room. Pierre and Parker are out getting groceries. Paola is off planning their next leg of travel. “My big dream wasn’t a career . . . it was this. Having a family.”
I don’t want to break this, I think. This moment with my sister. But I can’t help but say, “Cali, you wanted to be a curator.”
She shrugs a shoulder. “I guess. It was my dream career, but not my dream, if that makes sense.”
It doesn’t, to me. For me, my career is my dream.
“Dad told me he saw you,” she says, looking at me quickly, before studying her nails.
Suddenly, I regret even having this conversation. “I did. I wish I hadn’t.”
Cali nods. “Are you ever going to forgive him?”
Forgive him. As if it were one mistake, one thing to forgive, and not years of abandoning his kids and then trying to control them.
“No,” I say honestly. “And I don’t know how you have, after—after everything he did to Mom.”
“I didn’t,” she bites back, her eyes more intense than I’ve seen in years. “But I chose not to be an orphan. I chose to want to have at least one parent.”
I laugh without humor. “You chose money, Cali. You chose an easy life, where you get handed apartments, and your existence gets to be some endless vacation.”
Cali just studies me. I expected her to be more offended or outraged, but she just looks sad. “You know, Mom refused child support. We needed that money. She refused, out of her own pride, and it made our lives harder. She wasn’t perfect.”
I remember our life during the toughest years, the one-bedroom apartment with all of us piled in together, the school trips we missed, the shoes that hurt because they were two sizes too small. It only lasted a couple of years, and then Mom got a better job. Eventually, we moved into a house. She was able to give us everything we needed.
“How can you say that? She was trying to protect us.”
Cali nods. “I know. She did everything for us. But she made mistakes too.”
I don’t want to hear this about my mother. It’s disrespectful, it’s horrible. I turn away, eyes burning.
“I knew,” she says, out of nowhere, like the words have stumbled out of her.
I look at her. “Knew what?”
For a few moments, there’s just silence. Then, “She got sick right after you left for college, Elle. A year before she ever told you.”
I blink. Shake my head. “No. It was—it was sudden.” It’s part of why I hate change. The day I got the phone call, my life was turned over. Her sickness was too far gone, there was barely anything at that point to be done.
“It wasn’t. I found the medical bills, so she was forced to tell me. And she made me swear not to tell you.”
I think about how suddenly my sister became distant. “You . . . you stopped answering the phone.”
Tears slowly sweep down her face. She brushes them away with her shoulder. “It was impossible to talk to you, without having it all spill out. I—I felt so guilty hiding it. But Mom didn’t want you distracted from school. She didn’t want you taking a gap year.” She laughs without humor. “It didn’t—it didn’t seem to matter that I was dealing with all of it alone. All she ever cared about was you.”
I remember Thanksgiving that year. How Cali had left the dinner table early and marched up to her room. How my mom had stared at my sister’s full plate and said, “She’s going through a phase.”
My throat feels too tight. I don’t know what to think, but my eyes prickle, thinking about my sister, at fifteen years old, having to deal with all of this herself.
“I’m sorry,” I say as I wrap my arms around her shoulders. A moment later, her arms slowly inch around me.
“It’s okay. You didn’t know. I’m glad you didn’t know.” We stay like that for a while, so silent, I can hear the ticking of the wall clock. Then, she sighs. Drops her arms. We sit on the couch, both drained, both rubbing our knuckles across our eyes.
“I know you don’t agree with my choices, Elle,” she says. “But I made them. I knew the warnings, I knew the price, and I made them.” She shrugs. “I’m happy. Isn’t that enough?”
I don’t know. I don’t agree with her. I would never in a million years make the same choices.
But it’s not my life, I realize. I can’t control Cali . . . and I wouldn’t want to.
“I’m happy you’re happy,” I finally say, because it’s the truth, and I don’t want to lose my sister again. I don’t want to become yet another thing that she disposes of and forgets because it causes her stress and is bad for the baby .
“I’m happy you’re happy too,” Cali says. Her eyes slide to the part of the house Parker is staying in. “ He makes you happy, doesn’t he?”
“He does,” I say, because it’s the truth. But happiness is complicated. People are complicated.
I hug my sister again, breathe her in, and remember when it was just us, playing Barbies, finger-painting at the kitchen counter, watching movies on a quilt.
Life might be complicated, but love isn’t. It’s pretty straightforward. It’s a lance through plans, and morals, and pride. It cuts right through everything. It doesn’t care about the mess it makes. It hurts, and we let it.
“I love you, Cali,” I say into her shoulder. “Always.”
“I love you too, Elle. And I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad you made it. Thank you.”
I hug her harder.
HOURS LATER, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, I CAN’T SLEEP. I GET some water and retreat to the terrace overlooking the coast. It’s quiet. Beautiful.
I jump as the door closes lightly behind me.
It’s Parker.
The open button-down shirt I’m wearing over a tank top and pajama shorts whips wildly in the wind. It reminds me of what I wore that day at the Yankee game.
Everything reminds me of him.
He haunts me, and I hate it.
I turn around, back toward the water.
“Elle,” he says, his tone serious. We’ve avoided speaking about anything between us for days. I should have known the conversation would come eventually.”You don’t have to talk to me. I understand that you’ve moved on. I just—I need you to know that I’m sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen. I wish I could—”
“It’s okay,” I say, still facing the water. “It’s not your fault.” Then I frown, turning toward him. “What do you mean, you know I’ve moved on?”
Something like pain, or maybe anger, flashes across Parker’s face. He meets me at the railing, bracing his hands against it. He doesn’t look at me as he says, “I heard you with him, Elle. I saw him go into your apartment, and I heard you . . .”
What? “Heard me with who?”
“Luke.”
I almost choke on my water, remembering what Penelope told me they did several times . He thought it was me? “Parker,” I say slowly, “Luke literally thinks I’m a serial killer.”
He gives me a bewildered look. “What?”
“Never mind. It just—it was Penelope who you heard. Not me. I moved out for a week.”
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Parker look so relieved. Almost all the tension seems to leave his body. “Oh.”
I tilt my head at him. “You thought I had sex with someone else, against our shared wall, a week after we broke things off, and you still took me to Europe for my sister?”
Parker lifts a shoulder. “I told you. It was the least I could do after . . . everything.”
For a few minutes, we just watch the water. “They’re leaving tomorrow,” I finally say. “They’re going to stay with Pierre’s family in Switzerland.”
“And you?”
“I have to get home. My screenplay is due in a week. I have one scene left. The last one.”
He turns to me. “Let’s go,” he says.
“Go?”
“To the last location,” he says. “The last one on the list.” The one that was very much not part of our agreement, not that it’s relevant anymore.
“Paris?”
The studio has a permit for the Eiffel Tower. I’ve never been, but I was going to look up videos or something to make up for it.
He nods, suddenly full of conviction. His eyes are blazing. “Summer isn’t over, not yet,” he says. “Let’s go.”
I frown. “But it’s almost Labor Day weekend. Don’t you have that important thing in the Hamptons?”
“Fuck the Hamptons.”
We book the flights. We say goodbye to my sister and Isabella and, yes, Pierre, and it’s hard, but Cali promises she’ll be back in the States soon.
Then we’re at the airport, flying to Paris.