by Jen Malone
As if he can read my mind, he says, “I think you’re selling yourself short, Aubree. You’ve been doing quite the job of it ever since you decided to take ownership over our tour. So you have that success already. And taking ownership over your mistakes is about as grown up as it gets. I’ll let you think that one over. And I’m here if you need to talk. But you do need to tell Sam. Soon.”
I study the ground. “I’ll think about it.”
“Do more than think.”
Geez, for someone so nice, he sure can be pushy. He stands and brushes his pants off before offering me a hand.
“Anyway,” he says. “Let’s move on to what else I’d like you to do for me in the meantime. We can file this next request under the favor category. . . .”
After Mr. Fenton fills me in on his plan, he leaves me alone on the stoop to think. When I get back to the hotel, the front desk clerk hands me Sam’s iPad with a note from Mr. Fenton taped to it.
Perhaps a call back home will remind you of all that’s waiting there . . . versus all that could be.
He means all that could be with Sam. If I tell him and he forgives me (which is no guarantee), Sam could be waiting for me at home.
I think about going back to Ohio and picking up where I left off. Obviously I’ll be starting college in the fall, and that will be exciting in its own way, but otherwise I’ll be going home to exactly the same life I left behind last month. And while a few weeks ago, that was all that I wanted, it isn’t enough anymore. I want more.
Mr. Fenton’s right. I have to tell Sam. But first I have to tell Elizabeth. I owe her that much.
TWENTY-SIX
I connect to Skype and plug in my sister’s username. Before I have time to change my mind, the iPad is making a ringing noise. This time I hear Elizabeth before I see her.
“Bree? Hang on, I’m turning on the video. Don’t go anywhere!”
She sounds cheerful and I smile, thinking about how well our last Skype talk from Prague went.
“Hey! Hi!” she says when her face appears on the screen. She’s on the couch in our family room and the TV flickers beside her.
“Are Mom and Dad home?” I ask first.
“Nope. Both out. We’re safe. Although maybe you could find some pine trees to stand in front of and make one of these calls to them. I think they’re getting really antsy to talk to you. The postcards Madison’s been sending ‘from you’ aren’t quite cutting it anymore.”
I peer out my hotel window at the glittering lights of boats bobbing in the Riviera. Pine trees? She must be kidding.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I say.
“Yes, please. You should just watch Mom’s sad anime eyes every time she boxes up another care package for you. It’s driving me crazy having to put on the whole act of wondering what you’re up to at camp with her all the time.” She makes a face, then tugs a pillow into her lap.
I swallow. “Yeah, lying is the worst. That’s, um, that’s kind of why I’m calling.”
“Okay, but first can I say something?”
I nod, waiting.
I’m not at all prepared for her to say, “I want to apologize,” which she does.
“Huh?” I reply.
“Look, Bree.” She twists a strand of her hair around her finger and I wonder if she might actually be nervous to say that to me. I didn’t think Elizabeth “did” nervous. She continues, “I’m really, really sorry you overheard the things I said on the phone at the airport, but I mean, just look how wrong you’ve proven me.”
My eyes have to be as big as saucers as she asks, “You’re in Italy now, right? That means you’re past the halfway mark and disaster-free!”
Disaster-free(ish), but she doesn’t need to know that.
Elizabeth leans in to the computer so her face fills my screen. “I know you’re gonna accuse me of being condescending again, but I’m really proud of you and I don’t know any way to say that without sounding all big-sister-y.”
I’m flustered, but her words mean a lot. So much. I’m actually proud of me too. I set out to show my sister I could handle things on my own, and I did. I am.
I twirl the bracelet on my wrist as I give her a shy smile and a soft, “Thanks.”
She smiles back. “You’re welcome.”
Are we really having an adult conversation?
Knowing that she might actually see me as someone worthy of her respect gives me all the courage I need. Well, mostly. I take a deep breath and say, “Everything’s really good as far as the tour is concerned. It’s going perfectly. But, um, the thing is, there is this tiny twist I haven’t told you about.”
I puff out a breath and, before I can lose my nerve, fill her in on Dolores’s fall. Her eyes grow wider and wider as I mention the words ambulance and hospital, but I’m quick to reassure her. “Dolores is fine. In fact, her sling is off and Sam’s been working with her on exercises every day, so I really think she’ll be good as new.”
Oh shit. That wasn’t how I planned to introduce Sam. Maybe she didn’t notice.
My sister cocks her head. “Sam? Which one is he? Is he the non-PC guy from Texas?”
I swallow and dart my eyes away as I choke out, “Um, no. He’s, um, well, he’s sort of Dolores’s grandson.”
“I don’t—”
“The tour company sent him after the fall to help out. So her injury wouldn’t be an added responsibility for me.”
Elizabeth’s nose scrunches up. “And they were cool with just adding an unexpected guest midway through? Why wouldn’t they have arranged for her to come home instead? Adding someone else seems kind of extreme. He’d need a hotel room in every city and—”
I cut her off. “Okay, I might have left out the fact that Dolores is actually the owner’s mother, and Teresa didn’t want her mom abandoning the tour.”
I gulp and wait for my sister’s reaction. The pillow on her lap drops to the ground as she stands suddenly. I can only see her torso now as she paces the room. I try to remind myself that ten seconds ago she was all relaxed and gooey apologies, because her voice is decidedly unrelaxed as she says, “Are you telling me the owner’s mother is on your trip? The trip where we’re deceiving the passengers and the tour company and relying on glowing reviews to keep my career out of jeopardy? The owner’s mother! Is on your tour!”
In the background she plops onto Dad’s recliner and covers her face with her hands. I wait for the rest to hit her. It doesn’t take Miss 4.0 GPA long.
“Is Sam . . .”
“The owner’s son,” I murmur.
“Her son!” Elizabeth wails. “How could you have kept all this from me? I don’t know what we were thinking! We’re doomed.”
Dramatic much? I mean, I get it. If I remember back to the way I felt when I first found out Dolores was related to Teresa Bellamy and then how I flipped again when I found out where Sam fit into the equation, I guess I wasn’t reacting any differently than Elizabeth. But now that I know both of them, I feel like my evaluation is safe. It might even be safe after I tell Sam the truth. I don’t know yet, but my gut is saying Mr. Fenton could be right. It might not be the worst thing.
I just have to convince Elizabeth of that.
“Look, I know it sounds bad, but I promise you, everything is really awesome over here. I get along great with Dolores and, um, with Sam.” I cough a little and Elizabeth moves back to the laptop and brings her face right up to the camera. Her eyes squint.
“Why did your voice just do that when you said ‘Sam’?” she asks.
“Do what?”
She pulls back a little and studies her screen, which means she’s actually studying me. After a second, her eyes widen.
“How old is Sam?” she asks.
“Um, nineteen, I think. He’s a sophomore in college.”
“Nineteen . . . ,” she says, sinking back into her chair and looking at the floor. “And you like him.” She sounds resigned when she says this.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “A lot.”
Her head snaps up at that. “A lot?”
I can see different emotions play across her face: annoyance, fear, but mostly curiosity.
“Huh,” she adds.
“We’ve been spending most of our downtime together,” I tell her. This is weird. I never talk about guys with Elizabeth.
“Wow. Leave it to you to find a boyfriend on a senior citizen trip.” She almost smiles then, but just as fast her face falls. “Wait. Wait, hold up. He only knows you as Elizabeth . . . as me. Please tell me he only knows you as Elizabeth!”
Lizzie, actually, but probably not the time to break that nickname to her either. She’d hate it and I need her pliable. “He does. Which is what I need to talk to you about. Things are kind of progressing with us and, um, I really feel like I need to be honest with him.”
Elizabeth’s eyes widen. “You can’t, Bree. You cannot.”
I hold up my hands. “Hear me out. Please! I think I might have real feelings for him. And the lying thing totally sucks. What’s even worse is he has this whole thing in his past with lying and I know about it, so every day I do it too, it’s like I’m giving him the finger. It’s completely not fair to him.”
Elizabeth slumps back against the couch cushion. “Not fair to him? Bree, do you hear yourself? You’re willing to throw your own sister under the bus over a guy? A guy who you just met and who you admitted might not even stick around once he learns the truth? You know what’s at stake here. My future. Please don’t make me regret that I trusted you with it.”
It feels like she just reached through the computer screen and slapped me. My fingers curl around the edges of the iPad and my knuckles turn white.
She sighs and gazes at something offscreen for a second, then turns her eyes back to the camera. Back to me. “The thing is, if you could try to see this from my perspective. It’s not like I’m asking you to perpetuate this lie forever. I just need you to hold strong for a couple more weeks and then you’re home and I have my court date and this could all be behind us. I might be wrong, but from my side of the ocean, it just doesn’t seem like that much more to ask when you’ve already come this far. We’re talking about less than two weeks versus my entire career. Everything I’ve worked toward for twenty-one years. Years versus weeks? I don’t know, does that make any sense?”
I nod slowly. It does. It does make a little sense. Maybe I’m being selfish putting my own feelings above hers when I did go into this eyes wide open and I did make a promise to her. Mr. Fenton is older and wiser, but that doesn’t mean he’s right about this. Elizabeth and I were just starting to make some positive progress and I don’t want to jeopardize that. She’s my sister, which means I have to put her ahead of a guy. It’s like an unwritten law.
“I guess maybe I see your point,” I say softly.
“So you’ll stick to the plan?” she asks, and I can see the hope glimmering in her eyes.
I nod again, as if my head is being controlled like the marionettes in Prague. “Sure.”
“Thank you. Best sister ever,” she says, relief coming off her in waves. Her head turns toward a sound I recognize as the garage door opening. “That’s Mom. Bree, listen, I can’t even begin to tell you how much I owe you. Seriously. For life.”
I force a smile and wrap my arms around myself to mimic the hug she’s giving me, but really I feel like crying.
TWENTY-SEVEN
As it turns out, Mr. Fenton gives only an abbreviated talk the next day because Sam has found a DVD of To Catch a Thief and we pop it into the bus’s media system. It has two things going for it: it’s Mary-approved, and it takes place right in the area we’re driving through.
In the film Cary Grant and Grace Kelly go zooming along the cliffside roads in their convertible, but our bus takes things a little more cautiously. This makes me exceedingly grateful, especially after Emma tells me that in real life Grace Kelly died when her car crashed on these very same treacherous roads.
For most of the trip we’re inside the mountains. No sooner do we emerge from one tunnel than we are entering the next. There are approximately a hundred and ten of them between La Spezia and Monaco, which I know because Bento told Sam, who is now more than happy to translate for me. It turns out Bento has as much information about this area as Mr. Fenton and a wicked sense of humor. Who knew?
While I love Bento, I do not love Monaco. Even though every place we’ve been so far has become my new favorite, Monaco isn’t. It’s not because it isn’t beautiful, because it is. It also climbs into the mountainside, like the towns of Cinque Terre, but that’s where the similarities end, because everything in Monaco is flashy and new and shiny. And after how sleepy and laid-back Vernazza was, it seems a little much.
Mr. Fenton does not share my opinion. He’s practically hanging out the window, taking it all in.
“Have you ever seen GoldenEye? James Bond movie?” he asks me.
I shake my head, while next to me Sam says, “Of course.”
“James Bond striding into the Monte Carlo looking all dashing, ordering his signature martini, beautiful girls all around? That’s me tonight, Sam. You mark my words.”
Sam laughs. “Whatever you say, Mr. F.”
What Sam doesn’t know is that Mr. Fenton speaks the truth.
“Hello, we called earlier about the car rental? My name is Elizabeth Sadler.” I step to the counter and smile at the woman behind it.
She lets her eyes sweep over me and tiny frown lines show in her forehead. “Hmm. Yes. You were asking about our sports car selection, were you not?”
“That’s right,” Mr. Fenton says.
“For how many days?”
“Just the afternoon,” I say.
“Of course. We have several available. You will have your choice of a Lamborghini Aventador, a Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead, a Bentley GTC, a Ferrari FF . . .”
She trails off as if there are all kinds of other luxury vehicles she could mention, but Mr. Fenton doesn’t even hesitate. “The Lamborghini.”
“Very well. I will begin the paperwork. You may drive anywhere in Monaco and France, but not into Italy. The daily fee is three thousand euros.”
My jaw hangs open. Three thousand euros! That’s a small fortune. That could pay for my textbooks for the next two years. We’re talking about one day. Is Mr. Fenton crazy?
“Are you crazy?” I ask when the woman steps away to retrieve the car keys.
“Absolutely.” Mr. Fenton’s grin is wider than the Ohio River. “Aubree, I’ve dreamed about this for years. Besides, I’m a confirmed bachelor whose closest relative is a niece I haven’t seen in ten years. I’ve lived frugally my whole life, saving for a rainy day.” He peers at the sunlit Riviera sparkling below us and shrugs. “I see a cloud or two. Close enough. It’s time to have some fun with it.”
Mr. Fenton seems totally calm at the wheel of his temporary ride. If it were me driving a four-hundred-thousand-dollar car, I’d be a wreck. Then again, I got my license half a year ago and have barely even used it.
“Um, do you think you could drop me at the hotel first?” I’m afraid for what he has in mind. I know from all the signs everywhere that Monaco is the site of the Grand Prix races every year, but I’m not quite up for a qualifying run today. Mr. Fenton looks disappointed, but not for long.
“Will do. You’re too nervous to be good company. Besides, you have tasks to accomplish yet. And if there’s any time after those, you’ll need it for all that deep thinking about honesty you’re supposed to be doing. But run inside and see if any of the ladies are around.”
Oh sure, I can just picture Dolores’s hair whipping in the wind as Mr. Fenton screeches around curves. She’d totally be up for that.
But she is. She actually is.
Mr. Fenton helps her down inside, then burns rubber away from the admiring valets. Now that is a sight I never thought I’d see.
Sam is rounding the corner when they peel off and he uses the next few hours to give me a hard time for not letting him be
a passenger in the pretty, pretty car. At least he also spends the time helping me arrange for an assortment of dresses to be sent to our hotel for Mary, Emma, and Dolores to choose from. Even though Mr. Fenton instructed me to get something for myself as well, I can’t bring myself to spend his money.
I’m sure Sam can tell my attention isn’t completely in Monaco with him, but I can’t very well tell him about my call to Elizabeth or how in knots it has me, going back and forth between my own self-interest and being a good sister. Luckily he doesn’t push me for answers on my mood.
We return to the hotel after a stop in a café to find Mr. Fenton and Dolores pulling in. Thankfully the car and both occupants seem to be in one piece, though the two of them are hoarse from laughter.
“Was it amazing?” I ask.
“Worth every penny and then some,” he assures me.
“Time for your spa appointment, Mr. Fenton,” I instruct as he hands the car keys to a valet to park the car.
Mr. Fenton steps back to allow another valet to help Dolores from her seat. “You girls make sure you’re ready by six,” he tells her.
She giggles. “We’ll be primped and waiting.”
Mr. Fenton winks at me and I know it’s because of the sparkling dresses waiting to surprise the three women in their rooms.
Two hours later, Sam and I stake out a spot in the lobby, cameras in hand, waiting for our group to emerge. Hank and Maisy are the first ones down, which is some kind of unnatural phenomenon.
“We’re going to take a walk over to the marina, suss out some of those yachts. I saw one out the window that looked bigger than Texas.”
High praise coming from Hank.
“You might want to stick around a minute and see something,” I tell him.
Seconds later three giggling ladies step off the elevator in long dazzling gowns and high-swept hairdos. A moment after that Mr. Fenton steps off another elevator, looking handsome in a tuxedo. I feel like I’m sending my kids off to the prom.
“Ladies, you look bewitching,” Mr. Fenton says.
Emma giggles some more. “You’ll have to take turns having us on each arm.”
