One Italian Summer, page 20
I sit back on the bed. We lock eyes. I feel this pull, this electricity between us. The air is charged. I feel my body. This return to myself. The same one that was barren and starved with her passing, now brought back to life. Adam, the stairs, the food and wine. It has all made the blood pump faster and my skin feel softer, weightier. The blessing of this life, this one, brilliant, beautiful life. All the loss and anguish. All the joy that makes it possible. The tender connections, the fragility, the impossible odds of being here, now, together. The choice of continuing to make it so.
He hovers over me. And then we’re kissing again. I feel his warm hands on my sides, my back; they drift over my stomach. I feel his legs, intertwined with mine. I feel his chest—labored, heavy.
I thread my arms around his neck, stretch my body underneath his, and breathe with him—this man, this moment, this return.
I never felt like I belonged to Eric. I used to think it was because I belonged to her, but I know, now, that that wasn’t the whole truth. I did not belong to Eric because I do not belong to anyone. Not in that way, not any longer.
I am my own, just as she was hers.
* * *
Afterward we get ready to go into town. Eric changes into a new T-shirt and then puts on floral board shorts my mom had bought him. I eye him.
“What?” he says. “They fit. I like them.”
He grabs my arm and swings me into him. I feel the warmth of his body, the low hum of his heart.
“You’re beautiful,” he tells me. “Really, honestly stunning. I think about it every time I look at you.”
“Can I ask you something?” I say.
“Of course.”
“Did you know when you met me? Did you think, I don’t know, I was the one?”
Eric considers this. He’s thoughtful when he speaks. He never takes his arms away from me.
“I don’t think so,” he says. “We were so young, I’m not sure I was thinking like that back then.”
“So when did you know?”
Eric wraps his arms even tighter around me. He brings his face close to mine. “I know now,” he says.
History, memory is by definition fiction. Once an event is no longer present, but remembered, it is narrative. And we can choose the narratives we tell—about our own lives, our own stories, our own relationships. We can choose the chapters we give meaning.
Carol was an incredible mother. She was also flawed and complicated and a woman, just like me. One summer does not make that untrue. One summer is one summer. It can be a watercolor of beach days. It can change your life.
“Let’s go home,” I tell Eric. “I want to call Andrea. I even think I might miss La Scala.”
He smiles. He kisses my cheek. “There’s just one thing I think you may want to do first.”
Chapter Thirty-One
It’s barely sunrise when we take the boat out. It’s just me and an older gentleman named Antonio. “He’s the best; we’ve been working with him forever,” Monica told me when she arranged it.
I had to fight the urge to tell her I knew.
Eric is asleep in bed. We decided to stay, to spend an extra few days together in Italy. It’s been wonderful.
I toss on a pair of shorts, a T-shirt, and a sweatshirt; grab my bag; and pad down to the dock. The boat is waiting.
We pull away from the marina, Positano behind us, still shadowed in the time between days.
The day is warm, but the combination of the water and the speed makes me pull my sweatshirt tighter around me. The wind whips by; the sea caps dance strangely in the darkness.
When we get close to the rocks, Antonio cuts the engine. We bob in our little vessel; the three rocks like monuments before us rise out of the sea. Testaments to the resilience of the past, nature, perhaps the gods themselves. How many people have gazed upon these rocks? How many people have kissed underneath their archway?
Thirty years of happiness.
I nod to Antonio. I remove the small tin container from where it sits secured between my legs. I screw off the top.
“I brought her ashes,” Eric had said. “I thought you might want to do something with them here.”
As we near the rocks, the sun begins to crest, break. The dawn awakens around us; the smallest crack of sunlight gives way to more and more and more light. Every day the world is born again. Every day the sun rises. It is a miracle, I think. A simple, everyday miracle. Life.
We move forward, bobbing on the ocean. And it’s then that I take out the letter. The one that has sat in the vault for days, for thirty years.
I thread my finger along the edge, breaking the long-held seal. And then I open it, uncurl the paper, and read what is scrolled there in her own calligraphy.
My darling Katy, my baby girl—Italy is so beautiful. It reminds me of you. How happy everyone is in the morning, how the stars come out at night. I know I am not there, and I hope someday to explain to you why. I hope so many things for you, baby girl. I hope you walk through the world knowing your value. I hope you find a passion—something you love, something that lights you up inside. I hope you find the peace and confidence it takes to trust where your path leads. Remember, it is only yours. Others can wave and cheer, but no one can give you directions. They have not been where you are going. I hope you’ll understand someday that just because you become a mother doesn’t mean you stop being a woman. And above all else, I hope you know that even if you can’t see me, I am always with you.
Forever,
Your Mama
I fold the note in my hand, now dotted with water, and tuck it back inside its envelope. But then I feel it is not the only thing in there. There is a slim photograph. I pull it out. It’s of Carol, laughing in the marina. Her face is turned slightly from the camera, and the sun is setting behind her. She is bathed in light. A whole memory, I think.
And then the archway is upon us. I bring the tin to my lips. I kiss the top of it. And then as we move through, shadowed by rock, I empty it out the side of the boat. I watch as the dust descends into the water, scattered on the breeze.
She is everywhere, I think. She is all around us.
And then just like that, we are through the archway and the tin is empty. I feel a sinking hollow in my stomach, the recognition of completion. The understanding that she is gone now. She will not be waiting for me at the hotel, and she will not be home in Brentwood. She will not arrive through the front door of my home, unannounced, with produce from the farmers market. She will not leave fifteen second voicemails on my machine. She will not call. She will not hold me anymore, her arms enveloping me in her certainty, her presence. There is so much life ahead to lead without her, and she is gone.
Antonio circles the boat around. He looks to me.
“Yes?” he asks. As if to say Are you done? Is that enough?
“Antonio,” I say. “Where does the thirty-year legend come from?”
Antonio squints at me. “No thirty years,” he says. “Per sempre.”
“For always,” I say.
“Sì,” Antonio says. “For always.”
The motor turns back on. We pull away from the rocks, back to Positano. In a few days, Eric and I will go home. To an old life that is new now. To a future that we do not yet know how to live.
You will learn, I hear her say. Her voice echoes on the wind, the water. I hear it in the quiet corners of me.
I see Positano before us. The sun is fully up now. I can make out every building—the Sirenuse, the Poseidon, Chez Black. This foreign landscape, so familiar to me now.
“You will come back?” Antonio asks me. He interrupts my thoughts. I arch back to look at him.
“Yes,” I say.
He nods.
“They always come back,” he tells me. “It is too beautiful for one and only.”
We are caught up in docking then. Gathering bags, stepping over ropes. The present is relentless. It forces us over and over again to pay attention. It requires all of us. As well it should.
“I see you,” Antonio says, and then he is gone.
I climb the stairs back up to the hotel. I am barely winded when I arrive. My lungs have gotten stronger here. My legs, too.
I smell the smells of breakfast, the sea, coffee. The sounds of bicycles and children.
It is enough.
It is more than enough.
It is everything.
Rebecca Serle
Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 5:34 PM
To: Hotel Poseidon
Subject: Your Beautiful Hotel
Hi Liliana,
I’m not sure if you remember me but I was at your hotel in late July/early August of last year. My name is Rebecca Serle and I came with a friend. We ended up eating at the hotel more nights than we planned, and you and I got to chat a bit. I am in my early thirties and have brown hair. I had so hoped to return to your hotel this summer—particularly because I am setting a book in Positano and wanted to do further research. The book will take place in large part, in fact, at the Hotel Poseidon. But the book takes place in the early ’90s—was your father the manager at the time? Did the hotel look much the same? Any information you could provide would be so helpful.
How are you doing? I’m thinking of Italy, and your slice of paradise in particular. Sending warmest wishes and love.
Rebecca
Hotel Poseidon Positano—PR Manager
Wed, Apr 22, 2020, 9:55 AM
To: Rebecca Serle
Subject: RE: Your Beautiful Hotel
Ciao Rebecca,
It’s very nice to hear from you!
I hope you are doing well in these difficult times. We are all doing good here in Positano, although we’re looking forward to getting back to “normal” again.
It’s wonderful to hear you’re writing a book set in Positano and here at the Hotel Poseidon!!!
Here’s a short “background” history that may help:
The Hotel officially opened in 1955 (65 years ago!), although it had been my grandparents’ Liliana and Bruno’s private villa for a couple of years prior to that.
Their villa (and the hotel at the beginning) included the big living room, which is where the breakfast buffet is set these days, and the rooms below (room n°1, 2, 3, 4, and 5).
Since the opening, they have been working to buy more land all around the existing property and slowly they were able to add more and more pieces around it. The last addition was the pool area (the pool and the terrace where the sunbeds are spread out), and it happened in the 1970s.
The looks of the hotel haven’t changed much ever since. It has been run by my grandmother Liliana and then passed onto her children, Marco and Monica (my uncle and my mother, who are the current owners!).
In short—in the 1990s the hotel was run by Liliana, Marco, and Monica, and yes, it looked pretty much the same as it does now. My father is a photographer and he’s never worked for or at the hotel.
I hope this helps so far! Let me know if you need further information or explaining—I’d be happy to share more.
Hope you’re staying safe and well. I look forward to hearing back from you and of course to read this book when it’s out!
Kind regards,
Liliana
Public Relations
HOTEL POSEIDON, in the Heart of Positano
Via Pasitea, 148—84017 POSITANO, Amalfi Coast (SA)
Rebecca Serle
Tue, Jun 29, 2021, 5:24 PM
To: Hotel Poseidon
Subject: RE: Your Beautiful Hotel
Hi Liliana,
I wanted to say that we just announced my new book. It will be out next March and takes place in large part at your stunning hotel. Thank you for making the trip so memorable I simply had to write about it. More soon. It’s called One Italian Summer, btw
I cannot wait to return. Summer 2022 is coming! We will get there.
Love,
Rebecca
Acknowledgments
First:
To Melissa, Jennifer, and Leah Seligmann—and Sue who made them. Thank you for letting me in this close.
To Jessica Rothenberg, for sharing with me all the boundless love and impossible grief that comes with having her for a soul mate. I told you once I would never forget—now it’s in writing.
And to Estefania Marchan, who over a decade ago said she missed her mother at eighteen, and twenty-six, and five—all the ages and women she had never known.
This is for you, and for them.
Now:
To my agent, Erin Malone, for being everything I’m not: meticulous, flexible, professional. I am prone to hyperbole, but you’re #1, it’s just the truth. I could not possibly ask for a better or more fruitful partnership. You are never getting rid of me.
To my editor, Lindsay Sagnette, for being the greatest champion and cheerleader. Thank you for your trust in me, and for opening your doors so wide and offering me absolutely everything inside.
To my publisher, Libby McGuire, who has made Atria my dream home. Thank you, thank you.
To my publicist, Ariele Fredman, who is part wizard and part witch. I don’t know how you do what you do, but I sure am lucky you do it for me.
To Isabel DaSilva—I’m sorry I suck at the Internet. I’m trying (I should try harder). Thank you for making my books soar.
To Jon Karp and the late and brilliant Carolyn Reidy for helping In Five Years achieve so many career highs. I’ll be grateful forever.
To my manager, David Stone, for the long history and the new beginning.
To my agents Chelsea Radler and Hilary Michael for thinking (almost) everything I write is worth people reading and watching.
To Sabrina Taitz for being the best substitute teacher in the biz. We’ll always have Maui.
To the entire sales team at Simon & Schuster: you do the impossible for me.
To Camille Morgan, Fiora Elbers-Tibbitts, Erica Nori, Gwen Beal, and Anna Ravenelle for holding all the details together.
To Caitlin Mahony and Matilda Forbes Watson for making sure Dannie and Bella and Katy and Carol and Sabrina and Tobias are well looked after abroad.
To Lexa Hillyer for being the most wonderful friend and the most wonderful mother. Our mornings are my favorite time of day. And to Minna, my angel girl.
To Leila Sales for thinking I’m nuts, but voting for me anyway.
To Hannah Brown Gordon for forgiving me countless indiscretions, and for making it ever easier to fill an ever-expanding list.
To Danielle Kasirer for being my pod, my family, for making my coffee with just the right amount of creamer and for always having the peanut M&M’S.
To Niki Koss for being my big/little and the black T-shirt to my Ross.
To Jodi Guber Brufsky, whose home and heart is my happy place.
To Raquel Johnson for the love and the years and the glue, baby.
To Morgan Matson and Jen Smith for walking the path so close by.
To Laurel Sakai—because I would never be here without you, and it’s time I said it in print.
To my dad, who is a wonderful man and a wonderful husband and a wonderful father. And who takes great pride and joy in my mother’s and my union, however many bagels or however much pasta it might not allow him to consume.
To the wonderful people at the Hotel Poseidon Positano, most especially Liliana.
And finally to you, this time around: one of life’s most important challenges is determining what to hold on to and what to let go of. Do not be fooled into believing that you do not know which is which. Follow the feeling, follow it all the way home.
One Italian Summer
Rebecca Serle
This reading group guide for One Italian Summer includes an introduction, discussion questions, ideas for enhancing your book club, and a Q&A with author Rebecca Serle. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.
Introduction
When Katy’s mother dies, she is left reeling. Carol wasn’t just Katy’s mom but her best friend and first phone call. Even Katy’s husband can’t seem to get through to her—she is lost without her anchor. Her mother was her true north.
To make matters worse, their planned mother-daughter trip of a lifetime looms: going to Positano, following the very same route Carol did as a young woman. Katy has been waiting years for Carol to take her, and now suddenly she is faced with embarking on the adventure alone. But as soon as she steps foot on the beautiful Amalfi Coast, buoyed by the stunning cliffsides, delectable food, and charming hotel staff, Katy begins to feel her mother’s spirit.
And then Carol appears for real—in the flesh, healthy and sun-tanned . . . and thirty years old. Katy doesn’t understand what is happening, or how. But over the course of her time in Italy, Katy gets to know Carol in this new form, and soon she must reconcile the mother who knew everything with the young woman who does not yet have a clue.
One Italian Summer is Rebecca Serle’s next great love story, a transcendent novel about how we move on after loss, and how the people we love never truly leave us.
Topics & Questions for Discussion
The novel begins with “Carol’s rules to live by.” How does this set up the story and both Carol’s and Katy’s characters?
