The Deep Blue Sea for Beginners (14 page)

The kids talked in the back seat. Lyra glanced down at Max’s hand on the gearshift. He’d once told her he’d had the car sent from England. It was sea green, small and compact, barely large enough for four. The salt air rusted it unmercifully, but Max cared for it and Nicolas kept it running. Lyra felt a rush of tenderness for the way Max loved things.

“What is it?” he asked, catching her looking at him.

“Nothing,” she said. “I’m glad we’re all together tonight.”

“So am I,” he said, the corners of his eyes crinkling in a deep smile.

They parked on a side street, fitting into an impossibly small spot. The rustic old house stood at the end of a dark and narrow alley, in a hidden park filled with lemon trees. Voices carried from the town square; doves roosted under the eaves of tall, crooked buildings.

Max held the door open. They all walked into the restaurant. Da Vincenzo was half used-book store, half trattoria, making it necessary to pass through stacks of books, over readers sitting on the floor, under a staircase leading to the second floor, where the poetry and drama sections could be found, as well as several cramped guest rooms where, legend had it, many now-famous young writers had once stayed.

All the way in back, through a heavy burgundy velvet curtain, the trattoria was cozy and intimate, illuminated by scores of red candles. The menu featured local seafood, homemade pasta, and pizzas cooked in a wood-fired oven.

The dining room walls were lined with bookshelves, overflowing with old volumes that lone diners were invited to read while eating. Yellowed prints of great Italian writers hung below brass sconces, tarnished from the sea air; Lyra glanced up and saw Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio.

The place was favored by young intellectuals, and had been ever since Lyra had first come to Capri. She examined the menu and tried to picture Max here as a young man. She couldn’t help turn her head, look at him again, as she had in the car. His leonine head was bent as he studied the menu, half-spectacles perched on the end of his sharp nose. Craggy and powerful, he was still a handsome man.

“This is charming and wonderful,” Pell said, looking up from her menu. “I love it, Max.”

“I thought you might,” Max said. “There are fancier establishments in Capri, but none with quite so much warmth. And the food is superb.”

“Grandpa’s been coming here since he was our age,” Rafe said, as if he’d heard the story a million times.

“Not quite, but close,” Max said. “The original owner, Vincenzo Pertosa, was a friend to young writers and artists—not unlike Sylvia Beach at Shakespeare and Company in Paris. When I came to Capri right after Cambridge, I rented a room from Vincenzo. Many nights he fed me for free while I wrote my first play.”

“I didn’t realize you’d written it here,” Lyra said. “I thought London.”

“That’s where it was produced,” Max said. “But I wrote it right here. Upstairs.” He smiled up at the ceiling, as if in thanks and blessing.

“You were a starving writer,” she said.

“Poor, yes,” he said. “But not starving, thanks to Vincenzo. He housed and fed several of us that year. We were a colony of artists, giving one another support and making sure no one got discouraged. And eating well every night!”

Lyra resumed studying the menu. She thought of how different her post-college tour had been, how privileged she had been, how easily everything had been given to her. But how lonely, as well: there’d been no colony of like-minded young people. She had thought she was the only one in the world like herself.

The waiter came, and everyone ordered pizza. Max ordered a bottle of Taurasi, red wine from Campagna, for him and Lyra, while the kids drank mineral water. Lyra watched the way Max’s eyes kept darting to Rafe, making sure he was okay, monitoring his interest in the wine. The next time Max glanced Lyra’s way, she tried to give him a reassuring smile.

“Max, after dinner do you think we can go upstairs and see the room you stayed in?” Pell asked. “Is it still there?”

“I’m sure it is,” he said. “The rooms are all named after characters from Italian literature. Mine was ‘Beatrice.’”

“We have a minute before the pizza comes,” Rafe said. “Want to run up and check it out?”

Pell nodded, and the kids excused themselves. Lyra lifted her glass, raised it to Max. The red wine sparkled in the candlelight.

“Here’s to your inspiration!” she said.

Max seemed frozen, fingers wrapped around the stem of his glass, unable to move. He stared at her as if she had shocked him.

“This place,” she explained, looking around. “Where you wrote your first play. It must have been very inspiring, right? That’s what I meant….”

“Oh,” he said, clinking with her and starting to smile. “Of course.”

“What did you think I meant?” she asked. A teasing glint entered her eye. “Did something go on here? Maybe before you met Christina? Don’t worry, Max … your secret is safe with me. Did you fall in love with a young artist?”

He stared at her, warmth and great intelligence in his bright blue eyes, then looked away. She watched him gaze down at the bare wood table, rough-hewn and rustic, as if seeing something he couldn’t quite bear to think about.

“Oh, Max,” she said. “I didn’t mean to tease you. I know that Christina was the love of your life. I just thought that maybe you’d loved someone before her, when you were young. It wouldn’t be wrong if you did. I’m sorry for even mentioning it.”

“Please, don’t apologize, Lyra,” he said. “I just … your words about inspiration made me think of someone.”

“A young artist?” she asked, smiling.

He nodded. He met her eyes for a second, then looked down again. She watched him sip his wine thoughtfully, wondering why he was acting this way. Perhaps the restaurant was too full of memories, a reminder of days and people gone by. Wanting to comfort her dear friend, she reached for his hand.

“It’s okay, Max,” she said, leaning toward him. “Whoever she was, she was lucky you felt that way.”

“Thank you, Lyra,” he said.

Pell and Rafe returned. Lyra glanced up, saw Rafe pull back Pell’s chair. He touched her arm as she sat down; Pell seemed unmistakably shaken. The sight chilled Lyra, and she gave Max’s hand one last squeeze, keeping her eyes on Rafe. He registered her watching him and gave her a steady stare back.

“The room is empty,” Rafe said, “so we got to go inside. Grand pa, we found your name written on the windowsill.”

“We all did that,” Max said. “Vincenzo insisted we leave our signatures, in case any of us had success.”

“You sure did,” Rafe said, sounding proud of his grandfather.

“There’s a medallion on the door with a scene from
The Divine Comedy
—Beatrice standing in a garden,” Pell said quietly.

“Fruit trees, flowering vines,” Max said. “It foreshadowed you, Lyra.”

“Thank you, Max,” Lyra said, wondering about the intensity in his voice.

“Is it from the end of the work, where Beatrice and Dante unite in the Garden of Eden?” Pell asked, and Max nodded.

“Dante,” Rafe said, gesturing up at the portrait. “Is Gregorio related to him?”

“To Dante Alighieri?” Lyra asked, and it struck her funny. “I doubt it, but I’ll have to ask him.”

“It makes you laugh?” Max said.

“Yeah,” Lyra said. “Gregorio is a wonderful stonemason. But I don’t confuse him with a poet able to write about a journey through hell to paradise.”

“It takes a man like Max to do that,” Pell said.

Lyra gazed over at her daughter, surprised that she’d make such a statement. It wasn’t shy, reserved, polite, but it came from her heart, and Lyra was amazed at the way Max reacted. He bowed his head to Pell, touched his heart.

“Love can take you to paradise,” Max said. “You might find tragedy and suffering along the way, in fact you probably always do. Not everyone knows that, or they might be too afraid to commence the journey.”

“That’s why Vincenzo gave you the room with Beatrice on the door,” Pell said. “Because he knew you were worthy of her as your guide.”

“She’s right,” Lyra said, thinking of Christina, of the selfless way Max had loved her. She thought of his devotion to her, his long and unwavering love, and felt bad for having asked him about the young artist; he suddenly seemed so thoughtful and sad. She glanced at Pell, overwhelmed with love for her and for Lucy.

“Thank you, both,” Max said. “And Rafe too. You’re far too kind, and I don’t deserve a word of it.”

“Yes, you do,” Lyra said, squeezing his hand again. Just then the waitress brought the pizzas, and everyone looked so happy. Even Max; he’d forgiven her for mentioning the other woman, his old love. He gazed at her with such warmth and depth in his brilliant blue eyes.

Lyra felt stunned by her own feelings. Staring at Max, her own heart cracked open. He was so good; knowing he cared about her made her feel less terrible about herself. He accepted her for who she was, even for all the wrong she’d done, and she let herself imagine how it would have felt to be the young artist he’d once loved, to have him look at her in just this way.

In Newport, the day was sparkling bright. Lucy and Beck had walked Gracie down to Bannister’s Wharf for an ice-cream cone, and to see the boats. They walked out on the pier to see
Sirocco
, and saw Lucy’s grandmother serving luncheon under the blue canvas awning, holding court like a seagoing queen. Ducking so she wouldn’t spot them, they went to the other dock, where all the fishing boats came in.

“Travis!” Gracie said. They’d brought her here before, and she knew where her uncle worked.

“That’s right,” Beck said. “Uncle Travis is out in Block Island Sound, catching fish.”

“Ish, ish,” Gracie said, her word for “fish,” pointing at a cod-shaped weathervane on top of Keating Seafood.

“Very good,” Lucy said, kissing Gracie’s head.

“We’ll have to teach her to say ‘Auntie Pell,’” Beck said. “When she gets back from Italy.”

“Auntie?” Lucy asked.

“Don’t you think they’ll get married? Pell and Travis?”

“They’re only sixteen.”

“Travis just turned seventeen.”

“Still, they have senior year, then college. I think marriage is a long way off,” Lucy said. She loved thinking about it, but lately she’d noticed stress on Travis’s face after he talked to Pell. “If you’re right, we’ll be sisters-in-law.”

“Totally,” Beck said. “I’m all for it. They’ll make it through college together. I can’t imagine my brother with anyone else.”

“I can’t imagine my sister with anyone else,” Lucy said.

“I don’t know how Travis is doing it,” Beck said. “He works so hard on the boat, and he doesn’t sleep when he’s home. He misses her so much. Have you noticed problems lately?”

“Kind of,” Lucy said. “You have too?”

Beck nodded. “He seems really worried about something. Could she be falling out of love with him?”

“Never,” Lucy said. But she wasn’t sure. Something seemed wrong.

“When’s Pell getting back?”

“As soon as she convinces our mother to come home,” Lucy said. “Maybe she needs help.”

“Good plan,” Beck said, her eyes glittering in that “Eureka!” classic Beck way. “Let’s get your grandmother to sail us over there aboard
Sirocco!”

“Um, on second thought,” Lucy said. Although she laughed and kept walking along the cobblestone wharf, she felt a pang inside. She ached for her sister. One of the side effects of losing touch with their mother so long ago was an unbreakable bond with Pell. No two sisters had ever been closer.

Pell called Lucy when she could, and Lucy called her. Phone conversations were one thing, but nothing even came close to seeing each other. No wonder Travis couldn’t sleep either.

“Well, your grandmother’s yacht isn’t the only way to get there,” Beck said.

“We could swim!” Lucy said.

“That isn’t funny,” Beck said, and Lucy knew she was thinking of the time Lucy had walked down to the beach in her sleep, strolled right into the rolling surf, nightgown and all.

“I know,” Lucy said. “I’m sorry.”

“Dude, don’t apologize. Just, no swimming to Italy. How would you feel about a plane?”

“It’s a thought,” Lucy said.

“Works for many people,” Beck said. “Air travel. It could get you there fast. Do you feel up to it?”

“Totally,” Lucy said.

“You do seem a little better lately,” Beck said, peering at Lucy’s eyes. “The circles aren’t quite so deep. You’ve been getting some sleep, right?”

“Yes,” Lucy said, thinking of her mother’s call, how it had soothed her more than warm milk and honey.

“Except around 2:01,” Beck said.

“The bad time,” Lucy said.

“It’ll be less bad once you really have your mother in your life,” Beck said.

“Really?” Lucy asked, staring straight into her best friend’s bright hazel, green-gold eyes. She thought of Mrs. Shaw, Beck’s mom, of how close they were.

Beck nodded, but with a tiny apology in her eyes, as if she didn’t want to be too thoughtless in pointing out what Lucy didn’t have.

“Yeah,” Beck said, giving Lucy’s hand a gentle shake. “Yeah, Luce. There’s nothing like it. I want it for you.”

Twelve

I
t’s Wednesday now—five days since Da Vincenzo, and two days since I was supposed to go to see the seahorses with Rafe. I canceled. I’ve been gardening with my mother. Working hard, right by her side, not too much talking. I think we’re both afraid of what we might say.

Well, it hit me over the head, sitting at dinner the other night. Max loves my mother. And I don’t mean as her kindly old neighbor, watching over her in a benevolent, elderly way from the villa—I mean, he’s
in love
with her. Sitting at a table in candlelight, watching the way he gazed at her, I saw it all. And the way he’d acted on our walk: he had seemed so full of longing. I’d seen it instantly, the way he’d spoken about my mother finding solace in the garden. But I’d doubted my perceptions then.

No longer. Da Vincenzo was one of the most romantic places I’ve ever been. The candles’ warm glow surrounded us, held us together, kept us from having any secrets from one another. I saw everything at that dinner.

Max’s love for my mother, my mother’s doubts about herself, Rafe’s … okay, this is where it gets upsetting. Rafe’s feelings for me, are what I have to face. I do see them. What’s more frightening, I’m having some of my own for him. He is a little older than I, but in many ways seems younger. Loss toughened me—not in a hard way but in a realistic way. I know how life works, and I don’t try to fight it. I try to accept what comes my way go with the flow. Not Rafe.

He is really sensitive. When he lost his mother, he didn’t have someone like my father to hold him, rock him, tell him it wasn’t his fault. He didn’t have a dad who’d sit on the edge of his bed when he had nightmares.

From the sound of things, David Gardiner isn’t a bad guy—he’s just a believer in the stiff-upper-lip, get-on-with-it-old-boy way of parenting. Rafe responded by needing to hide—to protect himself from the agony of his mother’s death. Drugs and drinking provide a buffer. They’re a really effective shield against the worst feelings a person can have.

I know all of the above without Rafe even telling me. This is the strange thing about me: I take in people’s stories through my skin. Please don’t freak out. It’s just how I am. I see someone crying, and I feel the pain too. With just a little information, I figure out who the person is, what caused their grief; it seeps into me, into my heart. That’s what’s been going on with Rafe.

In the boat, on our way back from town the day we wound up in San Costanzo, we were silent pretty much the whole ride. When we got to the dock, I watched him scan the shore for starfish. He found one, silently threw it into the deep water. I asked one question.

“How old were you?”

I didn’t have to say “when your mother died”—he just knew.

“Seven,” he said.

Then we walked up the long stairs; I was transformed by what had happened during the afternoon, in the church, and could barely speak. But Rafe seemed to want to put it behind him, his show of vulnerability.

He began talking about New York, about school—he’d gone to St. David’s, on the Upper East Side, with Ty Cooper, a boy who now attends Newport Academy—and I had to ask myself why he was telling me such mundane things. He must have wanted me to see him as “normal,” with an untroubled past, a life I could relate to. He wanted to erase the image I had of him holding Arturo’s envelope, of the wild look in his eyes. He’d wanted to use, and I saw, and he knew I saw.

And it touched me even more deeply, to think of him wanting to manage my thoughts and feelings about him. As if he thought he wasn’t good enough just the way he was, as if he had to pretend he was different.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, through the ten years of missing my mother, and especially after our last deep talk, it’s that people are exactly the way they are. You can’t change anyone, you can’t alter the past. What is, is. And you have to go on from there. I’m grappling with an idea that I hate. I mean despise. And that’s that my father was so good, so wonderful, my mother felt she couldn’t live up to him.

With all her flaws, doubts, insecurities about motherhood, he’d filled in the blanks so easily. Maybe she really thought she could leave us with him, no repercussions. I wish I had pictures to show her, of my bald spot, Lucy’s bleeding face, our fingernails bitten down to the quick. Maybe she’d realize there really is a place for a mother in every kid’s life, no matter how inadequate she might feel.

When we got to the restaurant that night, I felt a little frantic inside. The skin on my hand prickled, sense memory from holding Rafe’s hand in the church. I hadn’t yet called Travis that day—I planned to later, after dinner—but he was foremost in my mind. I was in a relationship with someone I knew well and really loved. But I was having such intense feelings for Rafe. Just sitting next to him at the table made my heart beat in this very violent, thrashing, scary way.

Rafe is sexy. He’s dangerous, because he hasn’t yet realized he’s not in control—of life, even of himself. He is tall and lean, with wavy dark hair that falls into his ice blue eyes. He lives in Max’s boathouse, not up at the villa, and doesn’t shower that often—his hair’s kind of stringy, in a dissipated-poet kind of way. He smokes constantly; along with the way he drank and drugged, it’s as if he’s committing slow suicide. Something’s going to kill him.

He’s not the one for me. I know that. Travis is. Rafe is every mother’s nightmare—I have only to look at my mother’s disapproving face to know that. I’m psychologically in tune enough to question my own motives—am I attracted to Rafe just to get back at my mother? The answer to that is no. He pulls me in all on his own, without any help from her.

During dinner, when we went upstairs at Da Vincenzo to look for Max’s old room, something happened. I can barely write it—not out of shame or guilt, I don’t think, but out of not wanting to let it into the air, the world, take the steam out of it, take the power away. I think about it, and the top of my head nearly flies off.

We climbed the wooden stairs—narrow, crooked, dark. The second-floor hallway was lit only by one dim lamp on a table. There were doors on either side of the hall, close together because the rooms were so small.

Because it was so dark, we had to stand close to the medallions—ovals of wood, delicately and intricately painted with characters from books, a yellowing protective layer of varnish glinting in the low light, nailed to each door at eye level—to try to find Beatrice.

There she was, all the way at the end. I knew her instantly, by the romantic way the artist had depicted her, running through the garden, holding Dante’s hand as if she’d never let it go. Trees bearing both fruits and flowers arched overhead, the garden in full bloom.

“How do you know it’s Beatrice?” Rafe asked, flicking his lighter so we could see better.

“The garden,” I said.

“Huh,” he said.

“Did you read it in school?” I asked.
“The Divine Comedy?”

“I might have,” he said. “That’s the thing about the way I went through school. Not remembering much …”

I nodded, and the lighter went out, and he turned away. I could tell that this was at odds with what had happened earlier, him talking about St. David’s and school life. He stood there in the dark, looking at me.

“It’s okay,” I said.

“Not really,” he said. “I’ve fucked up my life. And everyone else’s.”

“Start over,” I said. “That’s what you’re doing right now, isn’t it? You have a new life. You threw out the pills.”

“You have no idea how badly I wanted to take them,” he said, finally admitting the truth to me and, possibly, himself.

“But you didn’t,” I said.

He didn’t reply, but knocked lightly on the door. No one answered; he turned the crystal knob, and we went in. The room was tiny, my idea of a monk’s cell, but without the religion, other than the holiness of books and writing: single bed, small dresser, bookcase overflowing with old volumes, scarred desk, and straight-backed chair. I touched the chair, thinking that Max had once sat there.

Rafe looked through the room, a museum to his grandfather’s early days. He did this funny thing—trailed his fingers over every surface. It was as if he were blind, had to see through touch. And maybe that’s not entirely wrong—it’s how we do so much in life, absorb the most important things through our skin. Or at least I do, as I mentioned earlier.

When he’d made a full circuit of the small room, he came back to stand beside me. We faced the window, which overlooked a narrow alleyway leading to the main square. Darkness leading into light: trees in the town center were illuminated, hung with strands of tiny white lights.

Both Rafe and I happened to look down at the exact same moment, and there, in the aged wooden windowsill (and covered with the same protecting shellac as the door painting) was Max’s signature. Of course I didn’t recognize it, but Rafe did, and pulled me closer.

“Look,” he said, pointing. “That’s my grandfather!”

“Who are these?” I said, looking at other signatures.

“Must be other people who stayed in this room at different times,” Rafe said. “Look at them all.”

The window was open. A slight breeze blew in, and happy voices drifted in from the square. I heard the rustle of wind in the leaves and branches. The lights swayed, casting moving shadows in the room. I shivered, not because it was cold, but from something else.

Rafe saw. He turned to me. It seemed he was about to embrace me. He held his hands so close to my bare arms, I literally felt heat pouring off his palms. But he didn’t touch me. He must have known he shouldn’t—he could see in my eyes that I wouldn’t welcome it. I wanted it, but I wouldn’t let it happen.

A minute later, we left the room and went downstairs to rejoin my mother and Max. That’s when I saw the look in Max’s eyes, and instantly knew how he felt about my mother. Love was in the air. I’d carried with me vestiges of what had just almost happened upstairs. My blood was racing; I knew I had to call Travis.

Days passed before Travis and I actually spoke. He was out on the boat; the fishing had been so good, they’d stayed out longer than usual. By the time he called me back, I was so churned up. I felt as if the world was falling apart. My attraction to Rafe made me hate myself, and this is weird: it made me fear my mother. Her instability, the way she had left our family. Thrown away everything good and wonderful, and for what?

Paradoxically, that fear made me stick closer to my mother than ever. I went to work with her. Helped her prepare the flower beds for the moon garden. I kept an eye on her while Gregorio flirted with her unmercifully. I had the feeling he wished I’d leave them alone so he could really pour it on. As it was, he kept giving me smarmy compliments, then telling my mother he saw so much of her in me.

Getting through to Travis became my obsession. That plus staying away from Rafe. I never once went down to the water; from the terrace I looked only upward—at Monte Solaro and the clouds, at night the stars and the moon—instead of down toward the shore, the boathouse, and the tide line.

I’d left Travis several messages—both on his cell phone and with his family. Even though his mother told me what was going on, that the trawler was out past Block Island and not returning till the hold was full, I wondered why he wasn’t calling—there’s decent cell reception out there. I know, because I’ve gone out so many times on my grandmother’s yacht.
Sirocco
has often cruised the New England waters with Lucy and me aboard, and we always called our friends from sea.

“Why didn’t you pick up?” I asked Travis when he finally called me.

“I was ankle-deep in cod,” he said. “Pollack too. My hands were slimy, and the fish kept coming.”

“Oh,” I said. “But couldn’t you have called me back on one of your breaks?”

“Pell,” he said, laughing, “I’m calling now. You seriously have no idea what it’s like out there. We’re either fishing, or gutting the fish, or icing the fish, or setting the nets, or trying to figure out why the trawl doors are stuck, or crashing for a two-hour nap. No such thing as real sleep out there. And another reason I didn’t call was because there are always a bunch of guys hanging around, listening in.”

“I’m sorry for being this way,” I said, trying to laugh at myself. But the fact was, I’d been desperate to hear his voice, be reminded of who he was, and what we had, and how much I loved him.

“You can be any way you want,” he said. “You’re my Pell.”

“I am?”

“Of course you are. Are you okay?”

“Oh, Travis. Better now, talking to you.” I closed my eyes, relaxed into the sound of his voice, the connection between us. I could almost feel him holding me.

“How are things going with your mother?”

“Pretty well,” I said.

“Have you laid it out for her?” he asked. “How you want her home with you and Lucy?”

“Not yet,” I said. “How’s Lucy?”

“She seems better. My mom said she’s slept through most nights since that last call with you and your mother.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” I took a deep breath. “It would be so good to not have to worry about Lucy.”