“Ah, here I am,” says a refreshingly cheerful voice. I turn my face toward the newcomer, taken aback by the pretty girl with a pristine white smile aimed my way. A halo of light frames her face, like she’s an actual angel who’s come to save me from feeling highly unwelcome at this Welcome Dinner.
Then she pulls out her chair and sits, revealing that the halo was in fact the combined efforts of a well-placed string light behind her and my astigmatism.
Hey, Girl, Did It Hurt When You Fell from Heaven, or Did I Leave My Glasses at Home Again? The West Jacobs Story.
“Hi, I’m Lila,” she says, offering her hand for me to shake.
I take it and give her a smile. “West. Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise,” she replies, angling toward Cammie and giving her a wave over the candle-and-flower centerpiece.
“I’m Cammie,” says the redhead who looks like Camilla Lovett, but this version can produce a pleasant smile. It stays in place—maybe even grows wider—when a server appears and informs us that it’s our turn to visit the buffet.
We get separated on the journey there, ending up in different buffet lines, and I’m grateful for the reprieve. The strangeness of being around Cammie again is already taking its toll. I don’t know how I’m supposed to survive this tense non-friendship while also catching glimpses of the girl I used to know. The smile I thought was pretty on her sixteen-year-old face is absolutely devastating at nineteen. My defenses will only get weaker, I can feel it, and it’s hard to imagine hers ever doing the same.
The only way to protect myself is by keeping my distance. A tall order when at the end of each day, the only thing separating us is one thin bedroom wall.
I can also eat my feelings in pasta and pizza and pastries. So I prepare to do just that, piling my plate high with something from every serving bowl and chafing dish I can reach. Halfof the stuff I can’t even identify, but it’s all making my mouth water with anticipation. I have to walk slowly back to the table to keep my feast secure, and by the time I make it there, I’m ready to stuff my face until it’s time to say “buona notte.”
But as soon as my ass hits the chair, my dad’s hand lands on my shoulder. “Well, there’s my son—I was starting to think you’d gotten turned around, wound up down in Villa di Bronzo or something.”
I laugh and shake my head, then bite off a giant hunk of bread to tide me over for as long as it takes him to make an introduction, or whatever else he needs from me.
“Ilaria, allow me to introduce the bambinoof that first summer at Villa di Bronzo, though he’s grown a bit since then—my son, West. West, this is Ilaria de Matteo, the executive producer of HistoReality’s documentary on Villa di Bronzo.”
Dad gestures toward the woman he and Dr. Alex have been chatting with since we took our seats, but it’s the first time I’ve really looked at her. I’d guess she’s a few years younger than my parents, her light tan skin creased only around her smiling mouth and eyes, rosy spots on her cheeks and the tip of her nose. Inky black curls are piled atop her head in some sort of twist. The long sleeves and layered skirt of her dress look loose and breezy, in contrast to the dozens of metal bracelets and necklaces layered around her wrists and neck. They all clink together when she lifts her wineglass toward me in greeting.
“West, a pleasure,” Ilaria says in a slightly raspy voice and the thick accent of an Italian who’s not from Ohio.
My mouth is still full of bread, so all I can offer is a nod and muffled “Mm-hmm!”
She’s unfazed, her gleeful attention bouncing between Dad, Dr. Alex, Cammie, and me. “Wow,due‘bambini di Bronzo,’ ” she says with wonder, pointing two fingers toward Cammie and me before throwing her hands up, like she can’t believe two unrelated colleagues had babies in the same year. “I cannot believe I did not know about the boy. Why did the world not hear about West?”
Dad and Dr. Alex share a look and laugh as Dad clarifies, “Well, this guy was born the previous winter, for starters—came into the world in a blessedly boring way at a hospital in the States. He was a couple months old by the time his pops and I brought him over here, nearly eight months by the time Ms. Camilla made her dramatic entrance.”
“Wooow,” Ilaria repeats, drawing the word out with amazement I’m not sure my origin story deserves. “How special for these two, to be in each other’s lives from the very beginning.”
She clearly has no idea of the minefield she’s tiptoeing toward, and I’m not planning to tell her, lest our screwed-up relationship become some subplot of this film I want no part in. But Cammie was always too comfortable playing with fire.
“Those first few months of his life were dreadfully dull,” she taunts, not even sparing me a glance. Our parents’ quiet laughter is forced and nervous, though I doubt Ilaria hears it over her own real chuckle. Then it’s like Cam can’t help herself—she has to see if she’s earned a reaction from me.
But when our eyes lock, and I see the challenge behind those icy blues, I can’t physically keep my mouth shut.
“They were nice and peaceful, actually,” I say calmly, not dropping Cammie’s stare. “Then she arrived, and I wouldn’t know peace again for sixteen years.”
While the adults laugh again—two of them as fake as a sitcom laugh track, the other enjoying herself too much to do the math behind my words—the only sign that Cammie even heard me is in the slight narrowing of her gaze.
Somewhere in the distance, I hear the conversation move on, Ilaria asking Dad and Dr. Alex about the transformation of Villa Russo into researcher housing. But Cammie and I are locked in a silent stare-off, neither willing to blink first. It’s juvenile, and pointless, and damn if I couldn’t do this the rest of the night.
Until the soft clearing of a throat, followed by an even softer voice, puts an end to our deadlock.
“Um, I don’t want to interrupt, but…” my forgotten seat neighbor Lila begins, her doe eyes darting a wary look between Cammie and me.
“Oh, you’re not at all,” I say, probably overselling it with the aggressive head shake. “What’s up?”
She still sounds a little hesitant as she continues, gesturing to the guy around our age I hadn’t noticed until now, who occupies the seat beside Cammie. “We were just wondering if you two are also here for field school.”
“Oh, uh, actually no,” I hedge, reaching up to scratch the back of my neck. I don’t know why the explanation of ourpresence here suddenly feels so complicated, like I can’t explain it without starting at the day of my blessedly boring birth and continuing through all the relevant moments in my life story.
