Chapter Nine Cammie #3
What would he think if he found out that he might not have missed it after all?
“No wife, then, or husband? No…romantic partner?”
I promptly feel a pinch on my thigh, causing me to let out a quiet yelp that no one seems to hear except the pincher in question. West leans in until I can feel his breath on my neck, and I will not be examining why that sends a shiver rolling through me.
“Now you sound like you’re trying to hit on him,” he whispers sharply. “Dial back the twenty questions.”
In retaliation for the stinging spot on my leg, I reach up and flick him on the nose. I don’t care if he is kind of right.
Oblivious to all of this, Paolo glances my way again, letting out a soft laugh as his brow furrows and he gets what might be his first real look at me since we were on land.
“You’re very curious, aren’t you?” he says with clear skepticism.
I hold up my hands, leaning back into the seat and rushing to say, “Sorry—my cousin always gets on me about being too nosy with people I’ve just met. Bad habit.”
Some of the tension in Paolo’s face eases, his friendly smile taking over.
“I understand,” he says. “I have a bit of that in me, too. Getting to meet new people all day, every day, from all walks of life—it’s sort of an occupational hazard.
My father and grandfather are the same.” He clears his throat before adding, “But no, no partner. I don’t think settling down is in the cards for me. ”
He turns back around, then seems to think of one more thing. “And hey, stay curious, kid. It’s a good quality to have.”
Normally, I’d bristle at an older man calling me kid; I’m hyperaware of looking young and feel like I always have to defend my (Basically) Real Adult status. But something about it works for Paolo. Or maybe I’m just already projecting my fatherly hopes and dreams onto him.
For a while longer, he drives in silence. I turn to West and keep my voice low even though it’s doubtful Paolo could hear me if he tried. “Do you think there’s any way the sea is in my blood, too? Like, have there been any signs I’ve missed?”
West grimaces. “How honest do you want me to be?”
I deflate before he’s even shared said honesty. “Well, now you have to say it.”
His eyes are preemptively apologetic. “My first thought was about the time our parents took us to Disneyland at the end of the summer before fifth grade, and we went on those Finding Nemo submarines, and you cried.”
“Okay, first of all,” I say, thrusting a finger into the air near his face, “I was, like, nine.”
“And it was a fake submarine submerged in a pool at the Happiest Place on Earth. ‘The sea’ does not get more kid-friendly,” West counters. “Besides that, haven’t you always called the ocean ‘suspicious’?”
“I just find it…concerning that there’s so much happening down there, more than humans even know about,” I say, my voice rising. “What are they hiding?”
West rolls his lips between his teeth, but one chuckle still slips out. “Who are ‘they’? Aquaman and the Little Mermaid?”
“Maybe! I’d feel better if someone was running things down in the deep dark unknown,” I argue, crossing my arms over my chest. “Also, why does it take up way more of the Earth than land does? Like, tsunamis? Hello! They’re the ocean reminding us who’s got all the power.”
West clasps his hands in his lap. “Have you answered your own question yet?”
I roll my eyes. “Nooo. I can still enjoy water from somewhere I can see the bottom, or safely floating on the surface in a lovely maritime vessel such as this.”
“I have bad news for you about the safety of this lovely maritime vessel in a tsunami.”
“They don’t get those on the Med,” I say confidently. “Or on enclosed theme park waters, which I’m sure I could handle now that I’m older and wiser.”
“Yeah, I believe in you,” West agrees with a smile that I return reflexively.
Marge’s gasp pulls our attention her way, and only then do I notice how close we’ve come to our island destination.
“Graham, look,” she says in wonder, one hand to her floral blouse–covered chest. I turn in the direction she’s pointing and see we’re nearing a craggy white cliff face with a few boats clustered around it.
“Sì,” Paolo says, “we are approaching the white grotto—Grotta Bianca. If everyone will stay seated, I promise I will get us even closer.”
The instruction was mostly directed at Marge and McKinsley, who had begun to move around to take pictures, sending the boat listing back and forth.
True to his word, Paolo does take us very close to the cliffs, where we join a mix of what look like other tour groups as well as some personal watercraft hanging out around the grotto.
Paolo doesn’t drop anchor, just lets us bob there in the gentle waves as he tells us a bit about the grotto, how the color comes from the sunlight reflecting off the bottom of the sea onto the deposits of minerals on something-something—admittedly, he loses me as I join the rest of my fellow passengers in snapping a bunch of pictures of the incredible view.
Everyone except West, that is, who’s gripping the railing behind our seats like it’s his sole tether to this mortal coil.
“Are you gonna come see it?” I turn to ask him.
“I’m good right here,” he says shakily. I almost start to tease him, because who’s anti-sea now, but something stops me.
My conscience, maybe, piping up to suggest that I could try being nice to West. Or at least not poke fun at what looks like legitimate discomfort.
I decide to listen to that voice, plus pay a little more attention to how he’s doing.
After a few minutes for oohing and aahing and selfie-ing, Paolo announces that it’s time to continue on. But when he takes the helm, he quickly whirls back around, like something just occurred to him.
“Do you two want a picture with the white grotto?” he asks, pointing between West and me. “Something to share with your parents? I took them for everyone but you, I apologize.”
I have to stop my eyes from bulging at the word parents, like the very acknowledgment that I have them is going to expose my whole scheme. When I fail to respond, West steps in.
“We’ll get the next one,” he says. “Don’t want to slow us down.”
Paolo accepts this at face value. I’d like to believe we’re not the weirdest tourists he’s ever taken out on his boat.
I doubt we’re even the weirdest in today’s tour group.
As he steers us back out onto open waters, our captain turns up some music that would absolutely be the backing track to a movie montage of riding through the Italian countryside in a vintage convertible.
On top of all the other noises and distractions, this fully forestalls any more attempts at conversation while we’re in motion.
Not that I even know what else to say. Maybe West was on to something, claiming we could have planned this better.
Or I could have, I guess—I’m pretty sure he would’ve done whatever I told him, though I don’t know why.
I look at the boy in question, realizing I haven’t heard a peep from him in a while.
While he’s still clutching the railing, his grip isn’t as white-knuckled as before.
Some of the tension in his face has eased.
“Do you get seasick or something?” I ask.
West shakes his head. “No, I’m good.” When I raise a skeptical eyebrow, he gives a sheepish smile, then concedes, “I don’t exactly love the ocean, either.
Or being out on choppy water in a boat, at least. It’s better when we’re cruising, but when we slow down and the waves rock us around, it can put me on edge. ”
One of numerous things that put West on edge, I think, continuing to piece together the complicated picture of who he is today.
But even the fact that he’s aware of what sets him off, and the effect it has on him, is different from the nervous boy I remember from when we were younger.
That boy never would’ve acknowledged these anxieties or their triggers out loud, either.
These differences only make me more impressed by the ways he’s grown—and more regretful that I didn’t understand just how bad things were before.
Didn’t always support him the ways a best friend should have, while absorbed in my own messy feelings.
I decide maybe I can provide more of that support and comfort now, even if he seems to have a better handle on everything. He’s only out here, dealing with things that make him uneasy, because of me.
So as we come to the next stop on our tour around the island, these three huge rock formations jutting out of the water that Paolo calls the “faraglioni,” I stay seated beside West instead of getting up to take pictures.
The boat slows and I notice him gulping in a big breath, then appearing to hold it.
I watch in my periphery, waiting for him to exhale and growing a little nervous myself when he doesn’t.
“Breathe,” I whisper out of the corner of my mouth, and without really thinking about it, reach over to put a hand on his knee.
“I’m breathing just fine,” he whispers back a little severely. Then he sighs and adds more softly, “But thanks.”
His eyes stray down to my hand on his leg, like he’s only just noticed it. I feel his muscles tense beneath my palm before he says, barely more than a breath, “Cousins.”
I yank my hand back. Maybe I spoke too soon about us being the weirdest guests on this boat.
“We’re now passing through the Faraglione di Mezzo,” Paolo explains as he steers us under a natural arch in the middle rock formation. “Legend has it that when a couple shares a kiss under this archway, it ensures they will stay together forever.”
Our boat rocks back and forth as he cuts the engine and lets us float farther under the arch, turning to face the group with a cheeky wink. Through delighted laughter, Victor and McKinsley share a kiss, followed by Marge and Graham.
Then, as if they scripted it, all eyes turn to West and me like they’ve forgotten that we said we’re related, too.