12. Taormina, Sicily
12
TAORMINA, SICILY
Now
“W ill you hand me a mandarin?” Paul asked from his deck lounger, not looking up from his book.
Wordlessly, Alex reached over to the polished silver fruit bowl to her right and grabbed one for him, still holding her own book in her free hand.
“Thanks, queen,” he said, sitting up as he took it.
From under the shade of her wide-brimmed straw hat, sun falling on the rapidly tanning length of her body, it finally felt like vacation. Just her and Paul on the deck, in the gentle rhythm they always assumed on their travels together. Their perfect balance of conversation and silence was something she still hadn’t experienced with anyone else.
Next to her, Paul set down his book and began working on the peel of his mandarin, looking out onto the coastline from behind his sunglasses.
She took the opportunity to speak: “My mom’s texting, she wants to talk to us.”
“What time is it over there?” He popped a slice into his mouth.
“Umm…” She picked up her phone to do the math. “Like 6 AM.”
“Why is she even awake right now?”
Alex pulled her sunglasses slightly down her nose for effect, looking at him over the rims. “Are you kidding?”
“Then let’s call her!” He slid his lounger closer to hers as she dialed the video, chewing rather loudly. “Do I look okay?”
“Your mouth is full of fruit, but—”
“Baby!” Elena beamed from inside the phone, slowing to rest on the garage elliptical machine. “And Paul!”
“I thought I was a baby,” he faux-pouted.
“Hi, Mom.” Alex smiled, sitting up a little straighter in her chair.
“How is my Greek goddess?” Paul asked, taking the phone from Alex’s hand to better see her.
“She’s good.” Elena beamed, gently patting her face dry with a hand towel. “And how is the trip? Have you two been behaving?”
Paul launched into his usual charm offensive, telling her all about the various ports they’d visited and getting up to show her a 360 view from their anchor point just outside of Taormina. The question— had they been behaving— was innocent enough, but it still flushed Alex with heavy memories of the night before.
“Umm, hello, guys?” Alex sat fully upright on her chair, beckoning Paul to come back. “Am I not on this call anymore?”
“Sorry, babe,” he reassured, returning to his seat and placing her squarely in the frame. “I was just showing her the view.”
“Are you not going to visit the town, Lex?” Her mother was nothing if not committed to maximizing every second of travel with capital-A Activities.
“I went for a five-mile run through town this morning,” she replied, half-wanting to add that she had also consumed over thirty grams of protein at breakfast and drank four glasses of water. “I’ll probably go back after lunch.”
From across the deck, a rather embarrassed-looking Danial stopped mid-step, laptop firmly in his hand. “Oh, sorry, I was just going to do a little work.”
“Who is that?” Elena asked, straining to see.
“It’s Danial,” Paul replied, diplomatic as ever. “Say hi, Danial.”
He flipped the phone around to place Danial in frame, and Alex’s heart jumped to her throat. The last time they’d spoken was the day before that fateful grad party, at a parents’ lunch where their mothers had gotten along fabulously.
Danial walked over to their deck chairs, leaning down slightly, his thin gold chain falling free from his button-down shirt. “Elena, how are you?” He smelled freshly scrubbed, the whisper of his sandalwood cologne blending with the expensive soap from their cabins.
“I’m good!” She paused, and Alex cringed with the thought that her mother was likely assessing his physical appearance. “You look healthy! Are you getting enough sleep out there?”
“Hah, probably not.” He smiled, crescent-shaped laugh lines appearing in his cheeks with the sincerity of it. “But I haven’t been working, either, so that’s good.”
“How is Marjane?” Her question had an unusually tender tone, especially for someone as blunt as she was. “We’re still friends on Facebook.”
“I know,” he confirmed. He knew? “Thank you for asking. She’s doing okay.” He paused for a moment, raising a cupped hand to shield his eyes from the sun. “I’m going straight to LA to visit her after the wedding.”
“That’s good.”
“Listen, Elena, I would love to keep chatting, but I need to hop on a call with the London office.”
“I thought you weren’t working.” Alex shocked herself with her own words, which escaped before she could calculate their rudeness. Paul rolled his eyes.
“I’m mostly not working,” Danial replied, meeting her gaze directly. “And by the way, I’ve seen you check your email at least fifty times since we set sail.”
“I knew it!” Elena cried from inside the phone. “She told me she’d deleted the email app for the trip.”
“Oh, honey,” Paul laughed, pointing the screen back toward himself. “I could have told you that was a lie.”
Danial turned to head to the dining table under an awning as Alex’s heart sank. She hadn’t meant to start yet another day off on a contentious note, but it always somehow crept up and took her by surprise. While Paul and her mother continued their conversation, she pulled herself from the lounger, following him to the far side of the deck.
“I’m about to—” he started, pointing toward his computer.
“I know, I’m not staying. I just wanted to apologize for being rude.” She kept a careful distance from him as she spoke. “And to ask if you wanted to have lunch with Paul and I afterward.”
“Really?” He looked heartened, and nervous, and as much like a lost little boy as he had the night before.
“Yes, really. It’ll be nice, just the three of us.”
He smiled, leaning into her fragile peace treaty. “But then we won’t get to hear more about Bee’s fascinating new dietary restrictions.”
“I saw her eat pasta last night, by the way,” Alex replied, faux-conspiratorially.
“Oh, I know.” He ran his elegant fingers through his ink-black hair, sitting back slightly as he laughed. “Lasagna, no less.”
From his computer, she heard the quiet technological sounds of his meeting starting, and he put a finger to his full lips in a “shh” motion as he moved to turn on his camera.
“Good morning, everyone,” he opened, slipping into effortless gravitas. His deep, rich voice sounded even more commanding in this context, reassuring and intimidating in equal measure. He glanced down at his grandfather’s watch, checking the time before jokingly adding, “Or, I guess, afternoon—though it’s hard to tell time at sea, if I’m honest.”
She heard the soft laughter rise from the voices on his screen, and only then did she realize that she was still standing opposite him at the table, frozen in place, marveling at the man he had become.
“We actually ended up starting a conga line, if you can believe it.” Paul laughed, leaning back slightly so a crewmember could pour him a glass of crisp white wine. “Even Guy was dancing.”
“I simply don’t believe you.” Alex smiled, indicating a motion of not too much for her own wine pour. Danial, meanwhile, politely declined.
“This is a beautiful pouilly fuissé ,” Paul protested, over-emphasizing the French words and bringing his glass to his nose for a theatrical whiff.. “You’re not even going to taste it?”
“Eating food is pushing the limits of this hangover right now.” Danial laughed. “I’m going to take a break from the booze for a minute.”
A crewmember walked around the table, offering a basket teeming with several varieties of gorgeous-looking bread. Alex took her time selecting a small ciabatta roll and a slice full of nuts and grains—for health.
“That’s probably wise.” Alex smiled across the table at him. “I’m just choosing not to be.”
“You’re fine,” he insisted, tearing off a piece of bread and dipping it in his little dish of olive oil. “You were much more reasonable than I was last night.”
He caught her eye from the corner of his, and she blushed.
“You did famously fight an Italian man.” Paul laughed, indicating with a flick of his wrist that they were ready for their first course.
“Okay, but in my defense,” Danial said in a faux-serious tone, “I was really drunk.”
“No kidding.” Alex snorted into her glass, shaking her head slightly.
“I’m sorry,” he turned to face her head-on, smiling, “Is this Elastigirl, shaming me for being too inebriated?”
She whistled, turning toward Paul and pretending not to hear him. In truth, she’d nearly forgotten about Elastigirl. When Paul’s friends had discovered that she was a gymnast in her day—too tall to make a career of it, but quite good nonetheless—they quickly took to demanding party tricks from her. And in her need to impress and please them, she always acquiesced. Usually, she would remove her shoes to perform an illusion, a simple move that rotated her right leg in a circular motion above her head, turning her around in the process. It had the best ROI in terms of being easy for her and impressive for the others, and required almost no space to move around in.
“It’s weird that you guys know Elastigirl,” she mused, more to herself than anything. She winced as her mind turned to the other, even less flattering versions of herself that they also knew.
“Why?” Paul asked, a crewmember setting a plate of fresh tomatoes and burrata in front of him. “You contain multitudes, babe.”
“And none of those multitudes is doing standing backtucks at house parties.” She picked up her fork and knife, pausing briefly as she considered her words. “Even if I sometimes miss her.”
“You miss gymnastics?” Danial asked, looking across at her.
“God, no.” She laughed. “If I wanted to stick with gymnastics, I wouldn’t have gone to Columbia. I mean… you know. I kind of miss that version of myself. It’s been so long since I just let loose like that.”
“You don’t feel like you let loose?” His eyes were still trained on hers, genuinely interested in a way she hadn’t expected.
“I mean, sure, I have fun. I just have a really stressful job, and we’re always talking about basically the worst things happening in the country at any given time, and my dad’s back has been acting up again—it’s just a lot.” She intentionally omitted the budgeting app she had stopped looking at days ago, as lunch on a yacht didn’t seem like the right setting to discuss her financial anxiety.
He swallowed hard, before taking a sip of his sparkling water. “I know how you feel.”
“I don’t.” Paul smiled, raising his glass for a refill. “But I love you two for being so serious.”
“You have problems too, I’m sure,” Alex said, looking at him sideways from her chair. She wouldn’t say it out loud, but the endless misfirings with his fiancé were, by anyone’s standards, a pretty big issue.
“I do, I do. Actually, on that note, there’s something I have to take care of.” Without further explanation or apology, Paul scooted his chair back from the table and walked into the salon, his auburn curls gleaming as his elaborate caftan wafted in the gentle breeze behind him.
“Is he okay?” Danial asked.
“Oh, I’m sure he’s fine. He’s probably going to text Guy to find out when they’re coming back.” She paused, sipping her wine. “And maybe change his outfit.”
He looked at her tentatively, almost asking permission to be honest. She met his eyes with hers, giving them a light roll of encouragement.
“He never gets tired of this shit, does he?”
“ Right ?” She leaned over the table with relief.
“I tried talking to him last year when we all went to the Grand Prix—you should have seen the fight they got into at the casino—but he’s determined to see it through, for whatever reason.”
“You did?” She had a hard time imagining anyone but herself having such candor with Paul.
“Yeah, but it was pointless. Guy has some weird power over him, I can’t explain it.”
“I can,” Alex sighed, cutting into a tomato.
“Yeah?”
“Guy is exactly who Paul’s dad wishes Paul was.”
“You think?”
“I know . His dad is always talking about how Paul should be more like him, take himself more seriously.” She shook her head, taking a drink of her water. “And, I mean, I get it. My mom wishes I was a marathon-running schoolteacher who lived in upstate New York. I’ve dated guys like that, and it was almost as good as if I were that person.”
At her words, Danial swallowed his bite, lightly dabbing the corners of his mouth with his napkin before taking another sip of water.
“And now?”
“Now what?”
He paused, as if deciding on the question in real time. “Are you still dating someone your mom likes?”
“No.” She laughed, setting down her utensils. “I’m not dating anyone. But don’t tell her that, or she’ll probably surprise me with a dating coach again.”
“Stop.” He suppressed a laugh, pausing as his last forkful hovered over his plate. “You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, yes, I am. The service was called The Marital Mindset. I still get email promotions, like, every other week.”
There was a brief silence, and a nod of acknowledgement to a crewmember who materialized as soon as their plates were empty. Amidst the light clatter, she continued, eager to dispel any possibility of seeming completely pathetic:
“But it’s an election year, so I’m pretty busy anyway. I’ll probably download the apps again when it’s over. I mean, I barely even have time for hobbies right now.”
The words washed over her as she said them, the heavy truth they contained: she could barely remember the last time she did something that qualified as a hobby. Her mind filtered through all the things she used to do that were totally disconnected from work, wondering when enjoying herself fell so low on her list of priorities.
“God, what even are hobbies?” he asked, echoing her own thoughts.
She raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you go upstate to race your beloved Audis?”
“Ah.” He chuckled “I do, occasionally, I guess you’re right. But, hey, you run.”
“Running is not a hobby. It’s a reluctant necessity.”
They both laughed, and she wondered what her one real hobby might be, if she had the disposable income to do whatever she wanted.
“But yeah, I’ve sworn off the apps forever,” he said, returning to their previous topic of conversation. “I’d rather die alone than have another two-week text exchange that goes nowhere.”
A shiver of relief rippled down her body. “Better to be alone than with the wrong person,” she said, repeating what she often told her mother.
“Tell me about it.”
“But I’m sure,” she started, tearing at a piece of bread, “I’m sure you do just fine without them? The apps?”
Her heart raced at her own words, simultaneously curious and terrified at the prospect of hearing him detail his dating life.
“I get a lot of interest,” he answered, a simple statement of fact. And it would have been ridiculous to pretend otherwise: handsome, wealthy, and almost frighteningly put together, he would be at the very top tier of New York City’s dating scene. “But the actual dates…”
“Yeah?” she asked, breathless with nerves.
“Just… dating is one thing, connecting is another.” He sipped his water before setting it down again, turning the glass in the diffused sunlight. “I think the women I take out like me more on paper than in reality.”
His eyes flicked upward to meet hers and she scrambled for something to say, something that would emphasize his desirability—to other women, of course, certainly not to her.
“I’m sure you’ll find someone soon,” she said, offering a diplomatic smile. “You have so much to offer.” The compliment sounded supremely awkward, not unlike what a guidance counselor might say to a promising student.
He appraised her silently, raising his eyebrow the tiniest bit before running his thumb along his lower lip and giving her a subtle nod. Her eyes followed his every movement, darting between his long, tan fingers and his full lips.
“By the way,” she finally said, breaking the spell his hands had cast with a change of subject, “Dev texted me this morning.” She kept her voice chipper, apparently still in guidance counselor mode.
“About what?”
“He told me not to be mad at you about last night. That it was the Italian guy’s fault.”
A light grin of smugness began to form on his face. “I told you.”
“Yes, you did. So, I’m sorry if I was a little harsh.”
“It’s okay.” He smiled wider this time.
There was another lull as the next course arrived, the boat bobbing almost imperceptibly in the water as a fluffy white cloud passed over the sun, briefly casting them in a second of coolness. From the end of the table, Melanie clapped her hands to call their attention. Danial and Alex both turned to face her.
“For your main course, the chef has prepared a seared monkfish filet with a fresh herb sauce, accompanied by lyonnaise potatoes and roast broccolini. May I?”
As she leaned in to pour the sauce, the two of them locked eyes across the table. Involuntarily, a smile began to pull at the corners of her mouth: timid, at first, but upon seeing his reaction she let her grin break wide, falling into the easy laughter of shared nostalgia.
“You remember,” she said, as Melanie wiped the spout of the tiny sauce pitcher with a cloth napkin and left the table.
“Of course I do,” he replied, picking up his fork. “But the real question is: Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Remember what oceans monkfish are native to?” She could see the impish joy in his eyes, even from behind his sunglasses.
“How dare you.” She whipped at him playfully over the table with her napkin.
“You didn’t answer my question.” Across from her, he cut himself a small bite of monkfish, raising one of his full eyebrows in suspicion.
“You want to know if I remember your little lesson.”
“I do.”
“Well, you’re lucky.” She arranged a forkful of fish, avoiding his eyes but keeping her tone light. “I remember that day. I remember a lot.”
His voice suddenly became very serious. “I remember everything.”
The knife clinked gently against his plate as he set it down, considering her from across the table. She could tell he was waiting for her to speak, or move, or do anything besides stare in response. She breathed in slowly, deciding what she wanted to say—what she even wanted the outcome of this strangely perfect lunch to be.
Before she could speak, he resumed, his voice barely above a whisper: “So, do you think we should actually do it, then?”
“Do… do what?” Her mouth was suddenly dry, and she grabbed her water glass for a long sip.
“Be friends.” His gaze never faltered, and his expression was neutral enough that she couldn’t quite tell what he meant by the question. But she could tell how she felt , with his eyes on her like this. Her body was weightless and heavy at the same time, fluttering with nervous energy.
He continued: “On our first night here, you told me you wanted to be friends .”
There was something almost challenging about the word, a barely perceptible petulance in the way he dragged it out.
A quiet “I think we can be” was all she could manage.
“Okay then.” He nodded, and with one hand moved his watch down his arm, shaking it loose. His voice was low and methodical as he kept his eyes fixed on his wrist. “Is that still what you want?” He looked up at her now, a few loose locks of shiny black hair falling in front of his eyes. He pushed them back, straightening up slightly as he did. “For us to be friends?”
“I…” Her voice tapered off, uncertain. “I want—”
“Because you have so much to offer , too,” he continued, deliberately recycling her words.
The air between them had become impossibly thick, and she felt just as unsteady as she had at that last brunch before graduation, arguing over the fish they were now sharing. That day, she had known in her marrow that he felt exactly the way she did, that testing her was his covert way of showing his deep affection. And she had been wrong—so spectacularly wrong.
She took a deep breath, and it shuddered slightly as she exhaled. “I think it would be nice to be friendly again.” Her tone was even and, although her voice was quiet, her delivery was plausible.
Danial’s face had gone completely stoic, devoid of a response. Her eyes flicked downward to see that his grip had returned to his water glass, fingers tensing around it in a way that seemed to border on dangerous. Finally he nodded, raising the glass to his lips for another long drink.
Suddenly, the rest of the group came spilling onto the deck, loudly tossing their shoes aside and interrupting their conversation.
“Every other store was closed.” Sophie sighed, slinging what looked like dozens of upscale shopping bags onto a free dining chair. “This town is useless.”
Alex glanced at the aftermath of their retail spree, caught between envy and amusement that the group finally wanted to do something other than visit incredibly expensive restaurants.
“It was great,” Dev clarified, following behind her while subtly indicating to Melanie that he wanted a glass of water. “We’re just a little tired, and some of us want to get a nap in before the party.”
“I’m not going to nap,” Bee corrected, grabbing a piece of bread from the basket on the table and tearing off the tiniest piece. “I just want to lay down for a minute.”
“Where’s Paul?” Guy asked unceremoniously as he brought up the rear of the group, his terry cloth polo looking soft and perfect in the sun.
“He ran inside for a minute,” Danial answered, clearing his throat and looking over at them with a lightly frustrated expression on his face. “Are you hungry? We’re having monkfish.”
Alex’s eyes lingered on him, heavy with the remnants of their exchange. She could feel the conflicting emotion churning within her, her petulance ceding to something much more complicated. Her breath was shallow in her chest, and when she noticed that her hands were trembling slightly, she set them flat on the table. As the group chattered around her, her mind was already in her cabin, composing another email to Clara.
It would take more than one pleasant conversation to convince her that she and Danial could overcome the past, but their lunch had accomplished something : it confirmed that the intense energy between them was not some one-sided delusion of hers. It was very real. And for that reason alone, she would take one final pass of the video her team was about to release on Horace Capital Partners. It would set them back a few days, she knew, but she needed to remove the scathing section about Danial’s former partnership with Santander—the section she’d hastily added after their fight at breakfast.
She didn’t know if she could forgive him, let alone trust him, but she could spare him the worst of her wrath.