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“It was just a kiss, Mom. Nothing more.”
“I had hoped you might have met someone worthy of you.” Her mother tolerated Marco insofar as he was her husband’s business partner, but that was where her appreciation ended. “You have missed out on so much lately, Lili. I haven’t told you often enough how grateful I am.” The swallow in her mother’s throat contracted Lili’s heart.
Casting a sideways glance, because a direct one would result in a complete breakdown, Lili placed her hand over her mother’s. “Mom, I’m glad I could be here for you. And don’t forget I got plenty out of it too. When else would I have had the time to watch the entire filmography of Johnny Depp?”
Francesca pushed Lili’s impossible hair behind her ears. “You have always bottled things up, just like your father. Instead of talking, you make jokes and spend all your time behind the camera. That is all well and good, but there are other ways to express yourself.”
Jeez, was her mother still talking about sex? “He’s not interested, Mom. And I’m certainly not interested in him.” Liar, liar, thong on fire. She left out the part where he’d asked her for a date. Best to put that down to the brain injury.
Lili sipped her coffee and looked about the kitchen. Having run out of space in the living room, her mother had turned every available patch of wall into a display of her daughters’ most embarrassing school-era memories. Cara sporting a retainer, reminding Lili that perfection took work. The two of them like oil and water at a family get-together. One in particular stood out now—Lili’s tenth grade portrait, still taunting her from on high above the back door.
It wasn’t just the hair—not much had changed there—but the bloat, which no one could ever term as adorably chubby. Several thousand laps of the pool later, she had come to terms with her body and the fact she would never measure up to the media’s ideal of feminine beauty. Only in the last couple of years had she dared to enjoy her curvier silhouette and how her love of food manifested in her shapely hips and voluptuous figure. But last night’s events had pitched her back into that maelstrom of teenage torment. School had been a nightmare and today, she had felt like she was in Casimir Pulaski High’s cafeteria all over again, ducking low and dodging mean girl zingers.
“He looked very interested in that video,” her mother continued, undeterred by Lili’s protests. “And Taddeo said he could not take his eyes off you the entire night.”
Francesca, the incurable romantic, believed there was someone for everyone. Her parents’ marriage was the envy of all, a love story started on a playground in Tuscany and consummated with a teenage wedding as soon as they were of age. Their happiness was both an inspiration and a curse to their daughters who could only dream of being that content in their choices.
“I can’t believe you watched it, Mom. I’m so embarrassed.”
“It came through very well on the new phone your sister bought for me.” She held up the latest gadget de jour, an extremely fancy example of communications wizardry. “And I’ve had your Aunt Sylvia calling me every hour to tell me how many times it has been viewed. It is quite the hit.”
Lili’s sigh encompassed everything that was wrong with her mother’s statements. Cara, the video, Cara…
“Now, Lili.” Francesca placed a cool-skinned hand over hers. “Now, Lili, what?”
“There is no need to get upset with Cara.”
Mom was on fire this morning. “I don’t mean to be—I just wish she wasn’t always copping out.”
Francesca looked thoughtful. “Do not judge her so harshly. Not everyone has your strength.”
Lili would happily swap her much-admired stoicism for a day in Cara’s Manolos. She stood, feeling wearier than ever. She really needed to lay off the morning carbs, especially now that she required all her wits about her for the coming hell days and the countdown to Jack Kilroy’s departure.
“Where is he?” Getting it over with sooner was best all round. “Where he always is on Sunday mornings.”
She left her Vespa parked outside her parents’ house in the hope that the short, usually pleasant stroll to Andersonville Park, feet from the grey-blue Lake Michigan, might will her pulse from a gallop to trot. No such luck. On arrival, Lili watched as her father stooped into the familiar huddle and carefully rolled the ball. When it landed at the far end of the bocce court, about ten feet away from its intended target, she winced. Tony’s concentration was clearly off and she knew why.
His youngest daughter had let him down.
Unbending to just shy of six feet, her father scrutinized the arrangement of the balls. Lili shuddered to think what was going through his mind, though the fact that the target of the game was a little ball known as a ‘jack’ gave her plenty of ideas. Likely, her father wanted to take that jack and dash it against the closest tree.
“Dad,” she called out. He hesitated for a moment, then came over to greet her with a stroke of her unruly hair. He wasn’t about to disown her in front of his bocce buddies no matter how shameful her behavior. The Italians had a code about this kind of thing. She’d hear it later.
“I thought I’d walk home with you when you’re done.”
“I’m done now,” he said quietly, turning to signal his goodbye to the crew. A couple of the old codgers in tweeds snickered, and Lili felt that adolescent gloom all over again. Except instead of the high school elite poking fun at her turkey thigh legs, her sexy hi-jinks were the talk of the assisted living set over jello surprise. She supposed that could be called progress.
They cut from the park onto Sheridan and Lili took the change of scenery as her cue. “How mad are you?”
No response. Not even a sigh. So, as mad as all that.
She braved a look, noting the strain etched on his handsome face and the worry-crafted grooves around his mouth that hadn’t existed two years ago. Instead of gratitude for her mother’s survival, her father chose to see every passing day as a test of the family’s fortitude and Lili usually came up short. He studied the ground, taking each step with a careful calculation.
“I’m not angry, Liliana. I’m disappointed.”
Oh, not that. She would rather he rant and call her out, but lately, his communication with her had devolved to cold silences interspersed with clipped expressions of censure. Once, they had been close, a love of cooking helping to forge a bond between them, and she knew he hoped
she’d take over the restaurant. But those hopes faded when she had taken an after-school photography class in the eighth grade. As soon as she held that camera in her hands and felt its weight, it didn’t matter that she was Lili the Lump—ha, she’d forgotten that one! In front of a camera, people changed into subjects, their focus turning to their own hair and smiles. Their visibility. Behind a camera, Lili became invisible.
