The Sun and Other Stars by Brigid Pasulka Read Free Book Online Page A

face?”
    “Ugh. Medusa’s here.” Medusa is what he calls the Milanese woman who has rented an umbrella at Bagni Liguria for the last forty summers and who insists on going topless as if this is France or something. I look over his shoulder.
    “At your own risk, Etto,” he warns. “At your own risk.”
    “Whatever, Fede. I feel so sorry for you, having to look at women’s bocce all day. Maybe you can apply for a disability stipend.”
    “Listen, I would much rather be staring at raw meat and gristle all day than at that lady’s seventy-year-old cold cuts.” He laughs, grabs the railing of the boardwalk, and leans back, stretching. “Why don’t you come off that boardwalk and talk to these Australian girls I found?”
    “No thanks. I think I’ll just laugh at you from here. What are they, nannies?”
    “One’s got a German uncle. They’re preparing the vacation homes for him and his friends. You coming over to Camilla’s later?”
    “Who’s going?”
    “Who always goes? Everybody.”
    “I’ll think about it.”
    “Come on. I’ll buy you a beer.”
    “You always say that.”
    Mimmo reappears and hands me the money for the sandwiches. “Etto, you should go put on your trunks and come out here. We’ve got extra umbrellas until the end of the week.”
    “Thanks, but I have to make some deliveries.”
    “When you’re finished.”
    “Then I have to mow the field.”
    “Ah . . . sì, sì . . . I heard it looks completely abandoned.”
    “It’s not that bad.”
    “I’ve got to go, Etto,” Fede says. He points at me as if that will pin me down. “Tonight. Camilla’s.”
    “Maybe.”
    “Listen, I’m tired of these halfhearted ‘maybes.’ You’re coming. End of the story.”
    “Maybe.”
    He gives me one last glare through his sunglasses. “See you there, Etto. No excuses.”
    I walk up the hill to Pia’s, the bag of meat banging against my leg. There are only a few people out walking the terraces during the afternoon break—German hikers mostly, with their ski poles and their vigor and their heavy “Buongiornos” that land on you like a wool blanket. The sun is compact and hard, pounding away at my head like a blacksmith’s hammer. I can’t tell you how much I hate the sun. My eyes hate the sun. My skin hates the sun. My brain hates the sun. By the time I get to Via Partigiani, my shirt is soaked and my breath is chugging in and out of my lungs.
    “Ciao, Etto.”
    I jump.
    “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
    “You didn’t scare me, signora.” It’s Signora Sapia, sitting on the rock under the traffic mirror with her sunglasses and her cane. “How did you know it was me, though?”
    “At this time of day, it’s either German hikers or you doing your deliveries.” She laughs. “Then I heard the wheezing and I knew it was you.”
    “I wasn’t wheezing.”
    She laughs again. “When you’re our age, Etto, you’ll be used to this old hill . . . watch out!” She points with the red tip of her cane, and I step aside just in time. The Mangona brothers come by on their racing bikes, with their stealth aerodynamics and the orange flame helmets they special ordered from the Netherlands.
    “Come on, Etto, train with us, you lukewarm piece of shit,” one of the Mangona brothers shouts at me, the backdraft carrying his words. The other one throws his head back and laughs.
    “Hey, vaffanculo!” I call after them. “Your auntie!” I add.
    They disappear around the corner, and I turn back to Signora Sapia. “Sorry, signora.”
    “Oh, Etto” is all she says. A few years ago, she would have given me a lecture about cursing and showing lack of respect for the family, and she would have done it swiftly and unapologetically under the statute that allows the nonne to correct the behavior of anyone they are old enough to remember as a child. But nobody ever says a harsh word to me anymore, as if they think I’ve already done penance enough for a lifetime. Sometimes I wish