Chapter 16 Tyson
I wake up on my rollaway cot, shocked to discover that it’s after nine o’clock. I never sleep this late. For my father, beating the sun is a point of pride—only the weak and lazy sleep in—and his mentality has rubbed off on me. I get up, feeling sheepish, finding Lainey and Hannah out on the balcony, drinking coffee in matching white hotel robes.
“Good morning, Mr. Sleepyhead!” Lainey says as I sit down with them at the small round table.
“Morning, ladies,” I say, getting a hit of dopamine as I stare out at an expanse of bright blue sea and sky.
“Want some coffee?” Hannah asks, gesturing toward an Italian press.
I nod and pour myself a cup as Lainey asks if we should order room service or go downstairs to eat.
“I don’t like room service,” I say.
“How can you not like room service?” Lainey asks.
“It’s the awkward dynamic—a waiter coming into the room where you’re sleeping, often when you’re still in pajamas.” I yawn, waking up.
“You’re so weird,” Lainey says, then points down to the rock formations below. “What are they called again?” she asks me for at least the third time.
“The Fa-rag-li-oni,” I say as slowly as I can. “How are you able to memorize so many lines in your scripts when you seem to have zero retention in real life?”
“Because dialogue is intuitive. It flows. And also—my scripts are in English.”
“Would it help to know that faraglioni is Italian for rock stacks?”
“Nope,” she says, shaking her head. “Doesn’t help.”
“How about that it comes from the Greek word pharos, which translates to lighthouse? Which they were once used as.”
“Nope. Doesn’t help, either.” Lainey shakes her head.
“How were they used as lighthouses?” Hannah asks, looking intrigued.
I nod. “Back when it was all one giant rock, people climbed up there and built a fire pit at the top so they could signal the land to passing boats.”
“Wait. How did they become three separate rocks?” Lainey says.
“There are actually four. There’s a smaller one you can’t really see from this vantage point…. But to answer your question: erosion. Thousands of years of pounding wind and water. And to further tax your memory,” I say with a smile, “each rock has its own individual name.”
“Uh-oh,” Lainey says.
“That one’s Stella,” I say, pointing to the rock on our left, closest to the shoreline.
“Well, that’s darling,” Lainey says. “And easy to remember!”
I point to the one farthest from land. “That one’s Faraglione di Fuori—”
“Fuori? As in fury?” Lainey asks.
“No. It’s taken from foris, the Latin word for ‘door,’ which can also refer to anything beyond a threshold—like outside,” I say, amazed by how often I use my high school Latin.
“And the middle one?” Lainey asks, pointing to the most distinctive rock of the three, with its small open archway at the bottom.
“Take a guess,” I say.
She smirks and says, “Lisa? Angela? Pamela? Renée?”
I laugh at her old-school hip-hop reference. “Nope. Di Mezzo.”
“Mezzo means ‘middle,’ right?”
“Yep. You know—like mezzanine…or mezzo-soprano,” I say. “Legend has it that if you kiss your sweetheart under the arch of the di Mezzo, you stay with them forever.”
“Oh, wow,” Hannah says with a wistful look.
I assume she’s thinking about Grady until she glances at me and says, “Summer would have loved that.”
“Why?” Lainey asks. “Because she was so superstitious?”
“Well, yeah. That too,” Hannah says. “But I meant the romantic part.”
I look down, feeling uneasy, just as I did last night at dinner. It’s hard for me to get used to Hannah knowing what happened between Summer and me. Maybe it’s in my head, but I still have the feeling that she’s not entirely comfortable with it—or more likely, that she’s upset I kept such a big secret for so long.
I tune back in to hear Lainey and Hannah discussing Summer’s obsession with rom-coms. Lainey mentions Sixteen Candles and Mystic Pizza, then starts quoting from Notting Hill. “?‘I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy—’?”
“?‘Asking him to love her,’?” Hannah finishes with a sigh.
“She ate that stuff up,” Lainey says.
“Every bite,” Hannah says.
“And how about her love of Taylor Swift?” Lainey says.
“You have to give her credit, though,” Hannah says. “She was a Swiftie before it was cool to be a Swiftie.”
“You mean before Travis Kelce put her on the map?” I quip, trying to get a rise out of them. They don’t take the bait.
“Gosh,” Hannah says. “How much would she have loved the Eras tour?”
“I know.” Lainey sighs. “I thought about Summer the entire show. Especially when Taylor sang her old stuff.”
Same, I think, getting a sharp pang in my chest. I’d gotten tickets for Nicole for her birthday, but I’d be lying if I said my mind wasn’t on Summer at the concert.
The girls finally fall silent; then Lainey asks if anyone is in the mood to go shopping.
I make a face and tell her it’s too nice a day to spend inside stores. “How about a hike down to the sea?”
“Why do we have to hike? Didn’t you hear Alessandro say that we can take the hotel car down—”
“Christ, Lainey. This isn’t Machu Picchu. It’s more of a walk than a hike. And it’s downhill.”
“Okay, fine. Fine,” Lainey says, rolling her eyes. “I’ll do the stupid hike.”
“Attagirl,” I say, giving her a light punch on the shoulder.
After a quick breakfast, we walk over to the nearby Augustus Gardens. Hannah goes crazy for the flowers, naming them all, from the more familiar geraniums, begonias, and dahlias to a shrublike yellow flower called “broom” that I’ve never heard of. I agree they’re pretty, but I’m more interested in the history, including a marble monument to Vladimir Lenin, of all people. According to theplaque, it was commissioned in the nineteen-sixties by the Soviet Embassy.
The best part about the gardens, though, has to be the sweeping views in all directions. On one side, you can see the Faraglioni. On the other side, you look down over Marina Piccola and the incredible Via Krupp, a dramatic switchback road zigzagging down the cliff, connecting the gardens to the beach.
As we walk, I play tour guide, telling them that the road was commissioned by German industrialist Friedrich Alfred Krupp so that he could get from his own mansion in town down to his marine biology research vessel.
Lainey looks bored until I add a footnote. “Old man Krupp also used the path to get to his secret grotto, where he had sex orgies with local youths.”
“Oh my God!” she says. “Like Jeffrey Epstein!”
“Yep,” I say. “There’s always one of those guys.”
“That’s terrible. Those poor children.” Hannah shakes her head. “Did he go to prison?”
I pull up Wikipedia on my phone. “No criminal charges, but he was eventually booted off the island—and out of Italy, for that matter. Later, they changed the name of Krupp Gardens to Augustus Gardens.”
“They should have changed the name of his stupid path, too,” Lainey says, frowning. “Are you sure you want to take that route? Isn’t there a straighter shot down?”
“Nice try,” I say, knowing she’s just trying to get out of the trek. “But if it helps, I read that the walk is very Instagrammable.”
She smiles and says, “In that case, I’m in.”
True to form, Lainey takes photos the whole way down the footpath. Mostly, she takes pictures of the scenery or selfies with Hannah, but occasionally she insists on a group shot of all three of us, which is a tedious process. First, she recruits a stranger, never bothering to gauge whether said stranger is in a hurry or in the middle of a conversation or has their hands full. Second, instead of just giving her Good Samaritan creative license, she issues detailed instructions about her preferred composition. Vertical, please. Just a tad higher! Did you get the sky? Make sure you don’t cut off our feet! Third, and my least favorite part, is that once the favor is granted, she holds the stranger hostage while checking their work, deciding whether to release them or ask for “one more shot.” I keep waiting for someone to lose patience with her, almost hoping that they will. But not only does everyone indulge her every request, they seem downright enchanted by her.
Needless to say, her shenanigans slow us down quite a bit. By the time we get to the bottom, we are all starving, having long since burned off our breakfast. I suggest we get lunch before we hit the beach.
“Can we go to La Fontelina?” Lainey asks.
“Is that the beach club you showed me on TikTok?” Hannah asks.
“Yes,” Lainey says. “With an attached restaurant. Okay with you, Tyson?”
“Sure,” I say, consulting a map, then leading us down a path lined with wildflowers and sea grass.
About three hundred meters later, we arrive at what is clearly a very popular spot. The open-air restaurant has a line of people waiting to get in.
“Darn,” Hannah says. “We should have gotten a reservation.”
“Hmm. Let me call Alessandro. I bet he can hook us up,” Lainey says without missing a beat.
We haven’t even been in Italy for a full twenty-four hours, and she is already working her connections.
A few seconds later, Lainey looks over and gives us a big smile and a thumbs-up.
“All set,” she says as she rejoins us. “Alessandro’s best friend is Chef Mario!”
She beams at us, like we’re supposed to know who that is, and a moment later, we are being seated at a prime table under a rustic straw-covered pergola, overlooking a small rocky beach. Instead of sand, there are slabs of limestone scattered with blue-and-white lounge chairs and matching parasols. The jet-set crowd is chic but laid-back.
Hannah and Lainey are seated across from me, and they keep up a running commentary on attractive men in our vicinity. They seem to be especially taken with a guy behind me who Hannah says is giving her Jude Law in The Talented Mr. Ripley vibes.
Lainey slaps the table and says, “Oh my God! Yes!”
I glance over my shoulder, then turn back to face them. “The foppish dude with the sideburns?”
Hannah nods as Lainey tells me to stop being so obvious.
I shrug and look out into the distance, my thoughts making their way back to Summer. I picture her now, warming up before a race. The determination and concentration on her face as she went through her routine, a combination of light jogging and dynamic stretching. Then, at the starting line, she always did one explosive jump, high into the air. I never asked why, but I assumed it was to wake up her nervous system—give it a jolt before the gun.
I tune back in to hear Hannah pointing to the cliffs. “That’s the spot where the Sirens bewitched Odysseus,” she says.
“The who?” Lainey says.
“The Sirens,” Hannah says. “In The Odyssey.”
“Oh. Never read it,” Lainey says, looking proud.
“Didn’t everyone have to read The Odyssey?” Hannah asks.
“I did,” I say. “Twice. In high school and college.”
“Well, I didn’t go to a fancy prep school,” Lainey says. “So don’t leave me in suspense—who are the Sirens?”
Hannah explains that they were mythological winged monster women, part bird, part human. “They’d hypnotize sailors with their angelic voices, luring them off course before drowning them,” she finishes.
“How ruuude,” Lainey says with a laugh. It’s one of her catchphrases from college, which she got from some sitcom.
“Wait!” Hannah suddenly says. “Do you remember what book Summer was reading the night we all met?”
Lainey shakes her head. “No clue.”
I look over at Hannah, thinking. I remember a lot about that night. I remember I was watching the Yankees–Orioles game. I remember thinking that all three girls were attractive and seemed cool. I remember being impressed with Summer as we discussed her running. But I do not remember what Summer was reading—if I ever knew in the first place.
“The Odyssey!” Hannah finally says.
“Oh, wow. That’s wild,” Lainey says. “Do you think that had anything to do with her wanting to come to Capri?”
“Tyson would know better,” Hannah says, giving me a loaded look that Lainey doesn’t miss.
“Wait. Why would Tyson know better?” she asks Hannah.
Hannah shrugs, still looking at me.
“I feel like I’m missing something,” Lainey says.
“You’re not missing anything,” I say, giving Hannah a warning look that Lainey also picks up on.
“Guys. What’s going on here? I have the right to know!”
“And why’s that?” I ask. “Why do you have the right to know?”
Lainey stares at me, incredulous. “Because it’s obvious that you told Hannah something you aren’t telling me!”
As Hannah not so subtly raises her eyebrows, Lainey ratchets up her inquisition. “Tyson! Tell me right this second! Did you and Summer hook up or something?”
“Jesus, Lainey,” I say under my breath.
“What?”
“That expression. ‘Hooking up.’ I hate it. You sound like a teenager.”
Lainey is undeterred and unabashed. “Fine, then. Did you and Summer ever kiss?”
I stare back at her, then say, “And what if we did?”
“Wow. Wow. Wow,” Lainey says, shifting her gaze to Hannah. “How long have you known about this?”
“Only a couple of days. He told me in Dallas.”
“This is crazy!” Lainey says.
“Why is it so crazy?” I ask, getting more annoyed and defensive by the second.
“Because. I always suspected that she had a crush on you, but I didn’t think she was your type.”
“I don’t have a type,” I say, bristling.
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Give me a break, Tyson. Your last three girlfriends are the same exact type—”
“First of all,” I say, now annoyed for multiple reasons, “three people is not a statistically significant sample size. Second of all, how are they the same type? Are they all lawyers? Are they tall?” I ask, thinking specifically of Laurie, my girlfriend preceding Nicole, who was a very petite yoga instructor.
“No. But they’re all drop-dead gorgeous Black girls—”
“So by that logic, Dog Guy must be the same type as Surfer Guy?” I ask, cutting her off.
“Okay.” Lainey nods, looking a little sheepish. “I get your point.”
“Besides,” Hannah says, “it’s not really about how someone looks. Tyson and Summer had a lot in common…. They both loved baseball…and books.”
I glance away, remembering how Summer and I used to pass novels back and forth. We loved all the same stuff and shared several favorite authors: John Green, Khaled Hosseini, Ann Patchett, and Curtis Sittenfeld. Summer had actually introduced me to Sittenfeld’s work, and I still had her copy of Prep. I’d thought about giving it back to her parents, but I couldn’t bear to part with it, as it had all of her little notes in the margins. Summer annotated books even when she was reading for fun, underlining passages, highlighting the names of new characters, and circling words she didn’t know. We had talked about teaching high school English once—how satisfying we thought the job would be. Looking back, I think we both discarded the idea for the same reason; at the time, it didn’t seem ambitious enough. I can see now that we were both thinking about life the wrong way, and for the first time, I wonder if Summer had truly been passionate about medicine.
“So were you guys in love?” Lainey asks me now.
I look back at her, my stomach twisting in knots, so many emotions hitting me at once. I feel the usual grief, of course, but also remorse and guilt that I hadn’t better understood the pressure she was feeling. I’m also angry that Lainey feels entitled to these answers. What happened between Summer and me is none of her business. I almost lash out at her but manage to hold back.
“Lainey. Please,” I say instead. “I really don’t want to do this—” My voice cracks, surprising both of us.
She stares at me, looking worried and appropriately sheepish. She might not understand all the emotional layers I’m feeling, but at least she seems to realize there is subtext to my resistance. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to upset you—”
“It’s fine,” I say. “Can we just move on?”
“Of course,” she says, nodding. “We can do that.”
“Thank you,” I say.
After several long seconds, Lainey finds my hand under the table. She wraps her fingers around mine, then squeezes. The warmth and subtlety of her gesture catches me off guard, but what surprises me even more is that I don’t pull away.