Page 43 of I'll Look for You, Everywhere
Anika shakes her head and adjusts the layers of bracelets on her wrist. ‘Once an asshole...’ she murmurs, and opens the passenger seat on her left, adjusting the bright orange dress so that she isn’t entirely exposed. ‘Come on.’ Peering her head through the open door, she smiles brightly. ‘Let’s get drunk and chat shit.’
My mum scoffs and joins her outside the car, Anika taking her hand and twirling her around. How long will other people have to fill his role? Her arm wraps tightly around Mum’s shoulders, so she doesn’t have time to remember it should be someone else. The anger settles itself in my gut.
I follow them down an old staircase that’s concealed by vines and thick hedges. The pathway is so narrow that I have to turn my foot to fit on the small steps. Humid air surrounds us once we reach the landing by the river. Anika swats a mosquito and curses under her breath while we walk to the table where Dr Savoy and Vittoria sit, beside Lucia Savoy and her new fiancé. The reason that we’ve all returned.
Lucia and Dante are almost identical, both dark-haired with large brown eyes. They look a lot like Vittoria. Lucia shakes her knee underneath the table energetically and it makes me smile; she’s never been able to stop moving in all the years I’ve known her. Her fiancé, Maio, stares at her with so much fucking love I want to vomit. As she uses her hands to express something wild and dramatic, Maio tilts his head back in open laughter. Pure admiration.
There are about twelve tables along the river, so you can hear the quiet chatter from them all. Laughter filtering in and out – the chime of glasses during a toast. Imbarco Perosino is lit only by candles, which illuminate the entire walkway with a warm glow. Lanterns are placed randomly along the edges or perched on tree branches. Each table has fresh flowers in empty wine bottles with wax dripping from the side. It’s pretty. Anika chose well.
Dr Savoy stands, clapping his hands together at the sight of us.
‘Ah! Dexter! Theo!’ He dances in place and extends his arms to give us handshakes.
‘Too handsome!’ He shields his eyes in mock blindness, laughing at his own joke with such enthusiasm everyone else joins in.
‘Looks who’s talking, old man.’ I shake his hand and he squeezes briefly, making me look up to see him wink before letting go. Is that where Magdalen fucking learned it from?
I pull out my chair to sit down, and another voice enters.
‘Ciao, everyone.’
It feels like someone has dipped my head underwater, everything becoming blurry and without direction.
Looking up, I see Magdalen shimming between tables to sit near Anika. Christ. Is this a fucking joke? Her cheeks glow as she smiles at my mother with such adoration, it almost makes up for my father’s lack. ‘Cinzia! You’re an absolute angel!’
My fingers alternate between gripping and relaxing the chair’s armrest, counting how many times I flex my leg underneath the table until my knee cracks. One, two, three, four. Small, meaningless motions to pretend that I’m not thinking about my best friend’s little sister.
‘Maggie! You look absolutely beautiful.’ My mum looks her up and down.
Her voice is breathless, as though she ran to be here. ‘Thank you. Everything you see, I owe to Marta.’
‘You’re making me feel old, amore! Feels like yesterday that you were throwing empty milk bottles at your father’s head and now you are...’ She makes several gestures with her hands as if trying to encompass the passage of time. ‘And now you are completely, woman!’
Nope. I can’t fucking handle this. Turning to face Dante, I force myself to speak, any semblance of a sentence to distract myself.
‘So, Dante. What’s good with you?’ It takes only the single question to trigger a stream of complaints. Settling into my chair, I let his voice dull the noise.
‘Oh, only that the bank robbed me today, Jesus Christ.’ He puts his glass down on the table. ‘The fucking clerk, who, let’s be real, has wanted to fuck me since year nine, decides tha—’
‘Dante, language,’ Vittoria snaps, eyes narrowing in on him.
‘I’m twenty-five, Mamma! You can’t tell me what I can’t say.’
Vittoria nods her head as if expecting this. ‘Whose roof do you live under? Whose food do you eat every night? Until the day I die, I can tell you that the sky is green, Donnie. If I hear you take Jesus’s name in vain again, you’re walking home.’
Anika barks out a laugh from across the table and tilts her head at Dante. ‘Yes, Donnie, listen to your mamma.’
Dante’s cheeks grow pink as he leans forward to address my sister. ‘Quick question for you, Anika. Super quick. Do you ever stop talking? I’m not sure if you know this, but just because you have a mouth, doesn’t mean it has to constantly move.’
‘Ah, you don’t like my mouth moving.’ Anika crosses her arms in front of her, a symbolic gesture of a grand defence. ‘Because you have no experience of talking to a woman?’
‘No,’ I chime in, feeling the need to intervene as older brother and best friend. ‘No, that’s not true, Anika.’ I look at Dante. ‘He always talks to his mamma, of course.’
Anika snorts and bangs her hands against the table, shouting so loudly the table next to us glances with annoyance. ‘I forgot how nice it was to have a brother!’
I wink at Dante, who mutters a string of crude curse words in a dialect only he and Anika understand. And while their conversation turns into a messy conglomeration of French and Italian, Jo, the eldest Savoy, settles quietly into the seat next to my father, loudly sighing and nodding at our fathers in acknowledgement while running his hand through his thinning hair. From what Dante’s told me, Jo isn’t handling fatherhood as smoothly as he does the public relations at the museum. I try to focus in on what the men are discussing but they whisper quietly to themselves, obviously not wanting anyone else to be part of the conversation. Having no desire to speak to my father, I look to my mum and Vittoria, who are occupied with Lucia’s arrival. Hands flail while they bombard her and her fiancé with questions about the wedding, pinching her cheeks, and then Maio’s, tears erupting at the slightest mention of the museum decorations they have chosen. I stare out at the river, trying to count the ripples of water as the ducks splash the surface.
But then I feel it, her.
