Chapter 48
Capri
Brady
My nose hovers over the delicate rose-painted porcelain teacup, taking in the scent of steaming organic chamomile tea. “Herbal teas are proven to help your mind relax. They have a chemical that helps the brain produce…”
“Stop it, Claire, please,” I say to my sister softly.
“You sound like Hayes.” I put the teacup down, sink back into the sofa and try not to look around.
The Silversteins’ villa is decorated in a style one can only describe as Contemporary Wealth.
Gold leaf on as many surfaces as possible and uncomfortable overstuffed antique furniture.
I try to keep my eyes focused out the window on the horizon where the sun meets the sea.
Maybe the beauty will somehow heal my heart.
Claire puts her hand on my arm. I’ve been crying since I left the hotel so I think there aren’t any tears left.
My parents were already here and my sister, her husband Charles, and Gemma arrived a few hours ago.
Gemma was asleep when her dad carried her in but I did get to see those pink cheeks and all those bouncy blond curls.
For a second my eyes were dry and I could breathe.
I sit up and look down the hall toward the room where she’s sleeping to see if there is any movement yet.
Claire rubs my shoulder; she knows I can’t wait.
“While you were gone, Gemma discovered ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’ but she wanted to make sure I knew ‘Stop! In the Name of Love’ is still her favorite.
She even choregraphed a new dance. She can’t wait to show you.
I had to edit it a bit. I don’t know where she learned to twerk.
” Claire knits her eyebrows together and scans my face.
“Not me.” I hold up my hands. The thought of Gemma dancing around with her little tushie out makes me feel a bit lighter.
But the sensation is only temporary. I lie down on the couch and put my head in Claire’s lap like when I was little.
She strokes my hair. Claire isn’t someone to gab on the phone or text much.
I send her twenty memes a day and she barely responds, but she’s always been there for me when I need her and it means a lot. Especially now.
“Claire, what am I going to do?”
“What do you want to do?” she asks. The words fall out of her mouth and land softly on my ears. If she had asked me this at the start of the summer, I would have given her a dumb look of indecision, pressing my lips together and raising my shoulders to my ears with a goofy smile.
But the answer comes easily to me now.
I want to go to Boston, start school, and be with Hayes. But there’s a difference between knowing what you want and being able to hold it in your hands. “When we got to Capri, I started having doubts about everything. And now I know Hayes doesn’t believe in me.”
“Why? Just because he didn’t tell you that Mom had arranged the entire summer for you?” Claire’s tone is flat and without my usual drama. She doesn’t get that it was easier to believe in myself when someone as sensible and together as Hayes led my cheer squad.
“Uh, yeah.” The reminder of the behind-the-scenes logistics makes me wince with embarrassment even in front of her.
“Big deal,” Claire says with a moan.
“It is a big deal,” I protest.
“Brady, our parents think their job is to open doors for us. They’re obviously lacking in the warm and fuzzy column, so they overcompensate. They did the same thing to me growing up and you know that. Guiding me toward this outcome or that.”
“But look at you. It worked. You’re a bizarrely annoying combination of success and happiness.”
“I got lucky. The doors they opened were the ones I wanted to go through. But with you they got it all wrong. So instead of turning you into a corporate shark who, by the way, just closed on the Belle and Envy acquisition, thank you very much, you became a people pleaser with enough self-doubt to supply electricity to a small country.”
I raise my head up for a second. “Wait, how does self-doubt generate energy?”
“You’re missing my point.” She pushes my head back down. “They didn’t know the right doors to open for you because you were on such a different path. But now that it sounds like you’ve found what you want, you can open the damn doors yourself.”
I hear our mother approaching. I sit up quickly and turn to Claire. “Does it look like I’ve been crying?” I ask. “I don’t want her to ask why I’ve been crying.”
Claire looks me over and says, “Yeah, you look like shit, but she had something done to her face this morning. Needles or a peel or something. She’s wearing her recovery sunglasses. She won’t see a…”
“Mom, hello,” I say. Claire echoes me.
“There you both are.” She stops and waves from a few yards away, black Lucite frames bigger than the windshield of my Miata covering her face. “I have a masseuse waiting in the pool house. My muscles are still tense from the flight. Why don’t the two of you join me?”
“I’m good,” I say. “Thanks anyway.”
“I’ve got a call with Tokyo in ten,” Claire says.
“Suit yourself,” Mom says, and she floats out of the room.
Once she’s gone, Claire turns and points. “That’s the door you have to open now.”
“Mom?” I ask. “She’s not a door. She’s a wall.”
“Brady, you think you don’t have enough confidence to pursue what you want. But you do. Hayes is not the source of your confidence. He’s a witness to it. Go to the pool house and tell Mom you aren’t going to law school.”
“Here at the Silversteins’? I’d hate to have to replace the pool house if Mom burns it down.”
“You’ve never told her what you wanted. You can’t blame her for that.”
Claire isn’t wrong. I’ve never been great at making decisions. One summer when I was eight, I couldn’t decide between a vanilla cone dipped in chocolate, a lemon ripple cup or a banana split at Sundaes on Main in Bridgehampton so my parents bought me all three.
“She sent you to boarding school and you went. Sailing school. You went. Whatever she signed you up for, you did. I told you in London. It’s time to stop being what other people want and start being what you want.
If you can tell Mom the truth, you’ll know the confidence you gained this summer wasn’t built on a lie.
It was based on knowing what you want. That’s the version of you I’m pretty sure Hayes loves. You can do it. Tell her.”
“By her you mean Eleanor Gibson? The woman we just saw pass through in the Chanel suit and her afternoon diamonds headed to a massage. That her?”
“Yes. Have you even told Mom about being a teacher?”
“She’s seen me in the playroom with Gemma. It’s not like she was encouraging.”
“Were there open bottles of paint or glue?” Claire asks, and I nod. Mom does hate the potential for a spill. “Tell her your plan.”
But is it my plan? Or is it our plan? The plan Hayes and I dreamed together.
Could I ever dream it without him? I walked out on Hayes.
He’ll be on a flight back home soon. I told him to go, and it wasn’t because of the lie.
It was because he doesn’t think I’m smart enough to handle the truth.
If he thinks I’m just this spoiled rich kid, I can’t be with him.
Or am I running away from responsibility because I don’t think I can handle it?
“Uncle Brady!” Gemma comes running down the hall and I wipe any tears from eyes so she doesn’t know how much I’m hurting.
“Gemma!” I pick her up and twirl her around. She giggles and smiles and I think for a few seconds that there has to be a way to make everything okay.