Chapter 34
Twenty minutes later, I walk down to the beach wearing my red bikini and a yellow linen sundress as a cover-up.
I’ve got the bottle of local limoncello I bought at the market and two shot glasses in my bag.
Nicolo is coming from the other direction.
I can see him as he passes under the streetlight.
He hops the stone wall and comes across the beach toward me, the crunch of his footsteps the only sound.
He raises a hand in greeting. My heart speeds up a little.
He has changed into casual dark blue pants and a worn white cotton shirt.
“Are you ready?” he asks when he reaches me. I nod, although I’m not, really. I try not to look at the lights reflecting off the dark water.
In one smooth motion, Nicolo shucks off his pants and shirt to reveal a tight little pair of blue swim trunks and his very eye-catching tanned, toned physique. It’s not a Speedo, thankfully, but definitely not an American guy’s typical swim attire. He sees me watching and grins at me.
“Do you prefer we swim like this or without clothes?”
“Skinny-dipping?” I reflexively reply, then blush furiously.
“No, this is great.” I stash the glasses and bottle of limoncello against the base of a large, smooth rock.
Nicolo is already in the water, diving under the black surface.
He comes up for air and shakes water from his eyes, calling for me to come in.
I slip out of my sundress and shiver in the night air, then tiptoe gingerly to the edge of the lake and dip my toes in.
It’s cool and menacing looking, slick and black as an oil spill.
I know there is nothing dangerous in the water.
Nothing more than fish, but still…the opaqueness is unnerving.
“Come on,” Nicolo invites, holding out a hand to me.
He looks me over appreciatively. This little red bikini is my favorite.
Still I hesitate. He must sense something is wrong and wades out of the water to where I am.
I try not to look down at his wet swim shorts, focusing on a spot somewhere above the crown of his head.
“Jules, are you okay?” He sounds puzzled.
I take a deep breath. “Um, yeah. Sort of. It’s just…I haven’t really been swimming here since…since my dad.”
He understands instantly. “Cavolo,” he mutters, his expression sympathetic. “How could I forget? I’m sorry.”
I start to tear up and try to keep it together, balling my hands into fists, fighting to gain control, but he sees my distress.
“Come here.” Still dripping, he wraps his arms around me and pulls me into a tight hug.
I freeze for a moment, then lean in. The warmth of his arms around me feels like safety.
It’s been so long. I sniff sadly, and he nestles my head under his chin, murmuring words of comfort in Italian, the water streaming from his body soaking my skin.
In one way it feels like it has always felt between us, friendship and desire and his sweet care.
On the other hand, we are not fifteen anymore, and these are very tiny swimsuits we are wearing.
Just a little spandex on his lower half and about three triangles of bright red fabric covering my body.
“I just miss him so much,” I confess, my voice muffled against his shoulder.
“Of course you do,” he says, rubbing a hand over my shoulder blades in a gesture of comfort. “Tony was a good man.”
We stand like that for a few moments, me sniffling and shivering, Nicolo comforting me. When I’m calm again, Nicolo lets me go gently. He sprints over to my sundress and brings it back to me. I slip into it gratefully. The night air is growing a little chilly.
“Forget the swimming,” he says. “We can just sit here on the beach and drink limoncello.”
For a moment I’m tempted to go into the water anyway, to prove I’m not a coward, but frankly, I simply cannot muster the courage. It’s enough that I am here tonight, sitting on the shore, attempting to make a good memory in a place where my worst one happened.
“I’ll race you to the limoncello,” I call to Nicolo, scrambling toward the rock where I left the bottle. “Last one there’s a rotten egg.”
He races after me, dripping lake water and laughing. I beat him to the rock.
“I guess I am the…What was it? The rotting egg?” He grins at me.
I settle down more or less comfortably on the pebbled shore in my slightly damp sundress. Nicolo drops down next to me.
While he’s not looking, I shamelessly admire the contours of his body, the muscled calves and trim waist, his broad chest with a dusting of dark hair.
He’s a beautiful man, a beautiful, kind man who makes me feel warm and safe.
Nicolo uncorks the limoncello. He pours two shots, filling both glasses to the brim, and hands one to me.
“I feel sixteen again,” he says with a laugh.
I wonder if he’s thinking of the sips of limoncello we used to sneak during that feverish summer of our forbidden teenage romance.
Of our secret meeting place under the oldest olive tree in our grove.
The tree was said to have already been here when my ancestors first purchased the farm.
They planted an olive grove around the tree.
No one really knows how old it is. Hundreds of years at least. It is believed that olive trees can live at least fifteen hundred years.
Most reach five hundred. That gnarled tree may have been a tender sapling when Botticelli, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci were painting Italy. I’m always amazed by the thought.
“I haven’t drunk limoncello in years,” I tell him. “Not since that summer we got in such trouble.” We clink glasses.
“That was a special summer,” he says lightly. We sip our shots, strong and sweet. The lemon essence makes my mouth pucker.
“Sometimes I miss those days.” I sigh, gazing out over the dark, rippling water of the lake. “I don’t think growing up is all it’s cracked up to be.”
“How so?” Nicolo rests his hands on his knees, leaning back in the sand, seemingly perfectly at ease.
“I thought it would be more fun, and I thought I’d have done more. I feel like all I did the past decade was try to survive.”
“I think many people feel that way,” he says.
“I know, but sometimes I feel so…stuck.” I sip my limoncello.
I know there’s no way the alcohol is affecting me so quickly, but I swear it’s loosening my lips.
“Stuck in my career, stuck in my life, stuck in love, just stuck. Sometimes I feel like everything and everyone is moving on around me, but I’m standing still. ”
Nicolo regards me curiously, his expression open. “Why do you feel like this, Juliana? What have the years held for you?” he asks.
I reach over and refill my shot glass.
Fueled by limoncello courage, I tell him everything in the quiet stillness of the beach.
It feels holy somehow, like I’m being purged of years of shame and grief.
It feel almost as though I am in a confessional, unburdening a life filled with unexpected loss and false starts.
Many years have passed since we shared confidences like this.
My mind flashes back to those soft summer nights, the silky darkness alive around us, moonlight filtering through the branches of the olive trees, the planes of Nicolo’s young face stark and shadowed, and the way we’d put our heads together to whisper our truest thoughts, lips pressed to the shell of an ear, bodies curved close.
How long ago it seems now. But how right it feels to be doing it again.
“So now you know my story,” I tell him when I’m done. I set down my shot glass and look him square in the eye, almost daring him to pity me. I realize I’ve consumed quite a lot of limoncello. The world is tilting ever so gently, rocking like I’m on a boat.
He says nothing for a long moment, just looks at me in the dim glow from the streetlamp up near the road behind us, those dark eyes warm on my face. I feel heated under his gaze, and glance out at the lake.
“You are not the only one who has regrets, Jules.” He says it with tenderness and just the barest hint of a bitter edge. He refills his glass and tosses the shot back in one smooth motion. He could always hold his liquor better than me.
“What do you mean?” I watch him, realizing how little I know about him now. Once I knew everything, but that was fifteen years ago. What has happened in those years? What has the shape of his life been?
“Tell me one of your regrets,” I say.