It’s busy at the harbour, so I don’t expect to actually spot Leonie, but at the same time I have this image in my head of her standing still, everything and everyone bustling around her. In my overactive imagination she’s brighter than everyone else and so I’ll see her straight away. I don’t, of course, but I do see someone who, for a second, I think is my dad. My stomach clenches and then I get that familiar feeling when I realise it can’t be him, it can never be him again. But Leonie’s here somewhere and I can’t wait to see her.
I take out my phone and check it again.
‘Nothing?’ Luke says.
I shake my head. ‘This feels like a film, don’t you think? Like this is a trick?’
He laughs. ‘I don’t think it’s a trick. She’ll come and find us when she’s ready.’
‘I don’t know what to do,’ I say. ‘I’m not good at waiting.’
I jump as my phone buzzes with a text. It’s Leonie suggesting a pizza place for us to meet at.
‘Public place so I won’t make a scene,’ I mutter, as I text her back to say we’re on our way. It’s not far, just a bit further along the promenade, and it has huge windows looking out over the water.
I’m already looking for Leonie before we walk in and once we’re inside, my stomach starts to flutter with nerves. What if she’s not here? What if she’s really not planning to come back with us to Rome?
She has to be here, she has to come. I can’t go back to Rome without her.
‘Milly?’ I hear from behind me. I swing round and she’s just coming through the doors. ‘You got here first?’ she says, her eyes wide, as she looks from me to Luke and back again. ‘You must’ve been close.’
‘I want to kill you!’
I grab her arms and pull her into a hug, feeling her press her face into my neck.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says.
‘Are you okay?’ I say, pushing her away again so I can look at her. It’s only then that I see Gia standing outside, smoking and looking nervous.
Leonie looks fine. In fact, she looks great. She looks older than sixteen and much older than the picture I’ve had of her in my mind.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she says. ‘I didn’t want to worry you all.’
I shake my head. ‘Seriously. Are you joking? What did you think would happen?’
She starts to speak, but we’re interrupted by a waitress asking if we want a table. She shows us to a table at the front of the restaurant, in the corner, overlooking the beach.
‘I hope you’re paying,’ I say to Leonie.
‘I thought we could just get drinks,’ she says. ‘Maybe starters? Are you hungry?’
I shake my head. ‘It’s fine.’
She looks down at her hands on the table. ‘I really am sorry.’
‘Is Gia coming in?’ I say, twisting in my seat to see if I can see her.
‘No,’ Leonie says. ‘She’s going back to work. She just wanted to make sure we met up, so she can tell her parents. I told them today and they were really upset.’
‘About you and Gia?’
‘No, they knew about that already. I told them how I left Rome. They were furious.’
‘I don’t blame them,’ I say.
‘Was Mum … Is Mum …’ Leonie’s eyes fill with tears.
‘She’s devastated, Leonie, what do you think?’
‘I’m sorry. I just … I was already stressed about having to leave Gia, having to go home. And then when she was just so …’ She shakes her head. ‘I know I handled it really badly.’
‘That’s for shitting sure,’ I say.
The waitress comes and we order some zucchini flowers and fried anchovies and artichokes and then Leonie says, ‘Do you think Mum will forgive me?’
I kick her under the table. ‘Of course she will, you stupid cow. Not sure about Elyse though.’
‘Oh god,’ Leonie says, looking out over the beach, her cheeks flushed and eyes still wet. ‘Yeah, she’s sent me a few menacing texts.’
‘We were so worried,’ I say, hooking my feet around her ankle. ‘All of us.’
Leonie nods, looking back at me. ‘I’m really sorry. Honestly. I don’t know what I was thinking. It was like an out-of-body experience. And then once we got here … I felt I was in a dream. Like I could just sort of have this outside real life. Like here was separate and I didn’t need to think about what was going on back in Rome.’
‘I remember doing that when my dad left,’ Luke says, fiddling with the napkin dispenser on the table. ‘I would go somewhere – only, like, to the skate park or somewhere – and tell myself he was still at home, that he’d be there when I got back, and nothing had changed.
‘It’s weird, right?’ Leonie says, nodding, her eyes bright.
‘I need to call Mum,’ I say, unlocking my phone.
‘Oh god,’ Leonie says. ‘I need to go to the loo. I’ll be back in a minute.’
She jumps up, her chair scraping over the floor tiles, and dashes to the back of the restaurant. I actually start to get up to go after her, but realise I can’t. I need to trust her. I tap on Mum’s name on my phone and stare at the screen until I see her pick up.
‘Is she really okay?’ Mum says, once I’ve told her where we are.
‘She’s absolutely fine,’ I tell her. ‘She feels terrible though.’
‘Does she … will she talk to me?’ Mum asks and her voice sounds so small that my eyes fill.
‘God, of course. She’s just in the loo, hang on.’ I suddenly have a vision of Leonie climbing out of the bathroom window and running away again and I shake my head to disperse it.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask Mum, as the waiter brings our food.
‘Yeah. Alice is getting stressed about the wedding and I’m no help because all I can think about is Leonie, but yeah. I’m fine.’
I see Leonie coming out of the bathroom. A waiter stops and says something to her, smiling wide, eyes twinkling, and she throws her head back and laughs before saying something back to him in, I think, Italian.
‘Hang on, Mum,’ I say, covering the phone.
‘Were you just speaking Italian?’ I ask Leonie as she gets closer.
Her cheeks go pink and she nods. ‘Yeah. Gia’s been teaching me.’ She points at my phone. ‘Is that Mum?’
I nod. ‘Will you talk to her?’
She almost yanks the phone out of my hand. ‘God. Of course!’
Leonie is crying and she’s never been a quiet cryer, so I grab her elbow and steer her out of the restaurant. Once we’re outside, I lead her over to the little wall that separates the promenade from the beach.
‘I know,’ Leonie says into the phone, her voice small and tight. ‘Once we were out of Rome, I felt awful. Please don’t –’
I turn back to the restaurant to give her some privacy, but see Luke coming outside and we both walk over to a stone bench just in front of the restaurant and sit down.
‘Thank you,’ I say, dropping my head down on his shoulder and looking over at my sister.
‘What for?’
‘Bringing me. Being here. Paying in there.’
‘Didn’t you pay?’ he says. ‘I thought you paid!’
I sit bolt upright and look at him, but he’s already laughing.
‘Dickhead,’ I say, dropping my head back down again. ‘Thank you.’
‘No worries. I’m glad she’s okay.’
I nod, my cheek sliding against the fabric of his T-shirt. It smells like fabric conditioner. Lemon. I turn my head a little and kiss the side of his neck, tasting salt and Luke Luke Luke.
Luke parks the car in the street behind San Georgio, turns off the engine and the three of us just sit there.
‘I can’t get out,’ Leonie says, sighing. ‘My legs are dead.’
‘They are not,’ I say.
‘They are. Luke, can you pull up right in front of the restaurant and just push me out of the car?’
Luke laughs. ‘Come on. You’re fine.’
He opens his door and then turns to look at me. ‘You’re fine, right?’
I nod. But I feel nervous too. They’re all waiting for us. It feels like a lot of pressure. And it feels like we’ve been away for a lot longer than two days. I get out of the car and walk around the back to open Leonie’s door. I’ve only opened it a little when a guy on a moped buzzes past, swerving annoyingly close to the car, and I have to press up against it. The metal’s hot, the sun glinting off the trim around the door and dazzling my eyes.
I duck down and look through the window at Leonie. She’s looking back at me, her eyes wide and her face pale. I pull the door open.
‘Come on,’ I say. ‘I’ll hold your hand.’
‘Promise?’ she says, reaching out to me.
‘Promise.’ I grab both of her hands and half pull her out of the car.
‘It feels like I’ve been away for ages,’ she says, as we walk towards San Georgio, Luke behind us.
I nod. ‘It really does.’
I look at the flower stall at the end of the square and beyond it to the hole-in-the-wall selling pizza bianca. Was it really only yesterday that I was eating pizza bianca with Luke at the services? I glance at him over my shoulder and feel him touch the small of my back with his fingers. It makes me shiver.
We’re two shopfronts away from San Georgio when Leonie stops dead and turns to me.
‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘For coming to get me. And for not yelling at me.’
‘No problem,’ I say. ‘I think Elyse will do the yelling.’
She smiles. ‘Yeah.’ She looks at Luke. ‘Thank you.’
‘No problem,’ Luke says, resting his hand gently on her shoulder.
‘I can do this,’ she says, taking a deep breath.
‘You can do this,’ Luke agrees.
‘You really can,’ I tell her.
And then we walk through the side door and into San Georgio.