me it belongs to your sailor. I swim there to meet him.”
“Jason and I were setting things to rights on Iguana when Mama G here climbed up the ladder and invited herself aboard,” Liz said. “You should try it sometime.”
“And trigger another panic attack?” Els said. “He saved my life, Mum. I may be a regular fish in a pool, but I’ve always been terrified of dark water, and I got tossed into the sea the day we met. I might have drowned if he hadn’t pulled me out.”
That fleeting shudder passed through Giulietta again as she looked from Els to Liz. She climbed out of the Jeep and kissed Liz on both cheeks. “Ciao, Capitano. Grazie mille. I make you special pasta when you come back.” She walked across the court, her hips swaying with what Els thought was a slight exaggeration. The back of her red linen dress bore a wet mark in the shape of a bikini bottom.
“That was the longest month on record,” Els said. She stepped into Liz’s embrace and nestled her cheek against his chest. He kissed her hair and took a breath. As he let it out, he pulled her closer with a fierceness that surprised her. “Anything wrong?” she asked, leaning back to look into his eyes.
“I had plenty of time to worry that your feelings might have changed.”
“What, a stubborn Scot like me?”
“Stubborn as her father, and sexier than her mother,” he whispered.
Giulietta was on the gallery chatting up the guests. Els was sure she was watching them behind her sunglasses. Surprising herself, she kissed Liz with abandon, a real movie kiss. When she let him go, he faked a swoon and grinned. She led him to the palm shade near the drive, in clear view of the gallery but out of hearing range.
“You didn’t tell me your mother was coming,” he said.
“I invited her after you left. I’ve been a mild wreck ever since.”
“Why? She’s charming.”
“To you.”
She turned her back to the gallery and put her arm around Liz, pulled his hip against hers, and slid her fingers into the back pocket of his shorts. The low sun was a golden ball caught in clouds that would soon drape the sky with flaming gauze. Pinky stood at the ready to shoot off the cannon.
“It’s hard enough meeting my mother for the first time when we both have so much history,” she said. “But she’s elusive about hers, at least as it regards me. If I ask her an important question, she blanks me or changes the subject.”
“She complained you were elusive about me.”
“What was there to say? This intriguing man and I spent an evening pouring our souls out to one another and I haven’t heard from him since, except for a few radio messages via Barrett Cobb?”
“I’ve never been any good on the phone,” he said. “But we had some beautiful days, and I wished you were there.”
“Is that how I’m going to see more of you, become a deckhand? Your drinks waitress, perhaps?”
“If I get you onto Iguana,” he said, “there won’t be any guests around.”
“What’s this Mama G business?”
“She went into perturbed Italian when I called her Mrs. Gordon,” Liz said. “Jason gave her the nickname.”
“What did she worm out of you?”
“Besides my marital status, financial prospects, and zodiac sign? Not much.” He tightened his grip on her shoulder. “She asked me if we’re lovers. I told her that was none of her business, which I’m sure she took as a yes.”
Els found her present display of possessiveness perplexing, unsure if it was aimed mostly at Giulietta or Liz, and recoiled at the idea of how “dem say” would feed on it.
“I’d love to join the two of you tonight,” he said. “But a Swedish family arrives in less than an hour and wants dinner aboard. We’re back in a week. First time in years we aren’t booked for Thanksgiving weekend.” He kissed her shoulder. “I’ll have four whole days to make it up to you.”
She bumped his hip. “I’ll be counting the ways.”
The sun oozed into the sea. Pinky fired the cannon.
Els sat on her heels, her bare knees deep in the red soil of the newly turned herb bed Giulietta had pronounced a necessity for any restaurant. Giulietta, her hair bound in one of Jack’s bandanas, wiped her brow with the back of her wrist, leaving a streak of mud. They were both perspiring freely, though the sun was barely peeking over the mountain.
“How soon