Page 7 of Summer on Sunshine Bay

“Give me the phone,” Carmen said to Bruno, motioning with her fingers. Bruno would know better than to argue when their mother got that look in her eyes.

Eva wasn’t so easily put off. She wasn’t about to let her mother say something she’d regret and possibly ruin a decades-old friendship. “Ma, you can’t expect them to come when members of their party are sick. Let it go.”

“Eva’s right. We’ll store the balloons in the back.” Gia nodded at a pink bouquet of helium-filled balloons at the far end of the bar. It was Ruth’s daughter-in-law’s birthday. “They’ll be fine until next weekend.”

Eva could tell by the almost-imperceptible twitch of Bruno’s left eye that Ruth hadn’t rebooked their reservation. Her sister must’ve caught it too because she gave Eva anoh craplook. Yes, Eva could almost guarantee it was about to hit the fan.

Her mother muttered something in Italian and plucked the phone from Bruno’s hand. She brought it to her ear. Ruth answered on the first ring. She was as loud as their mother, and they heard her apologizing for canceling at the last minute. It would’ve been better if she’d stopped there. Ruth gave herself away when listing the family members who were ill and their particular ailments. She said her daughter-in-law had laryngitis, but they heard her distinct laugh in the background.

The woman was as annoying as her laugh, and Eva wouldn’t put it past her to have had Ruth cancel the reservation when she found out her party was being held at La Dolce Vita. She didn’t like Eva and Gia and barely tolerated their mother.

Carmen made sympathetic noises. Eva might’ve believed she was being sincere if not for the sneer on her face.

Her mother disconnected and hopped off the stool. “Come on. We’re going to Windemere.”

“Why would we go to Windemere?” Eva and Gia asked at the same time.

“Her family’s not sick. They’re at the grand opening, and no one gets away with playing a Rosetti for a fool.”

“Cara, what will it look like for people to see you there?” Bruno asked, his voice soothing while behind their mother’s back he motioned for Eva and Gia to help him convince her not to go.

Even Eva knew it was hopeless to reason with her mother now. She saluted Bruno with her wineglass and Gia did the same, and then they sat back to drink their Chianti while Bruno made his case.

“Bah.” Her mother waved off what Eva thought were legitimate reasons for Carmen not to go. Their customers were used to seeing them here, and it would look as if they were worried about the competition if they showed up at Windemere, especially if her mother confronted Ruth in the middle of the restaurant. “No one will see us. We’ll take the beach and look over the retaining wall.”

“Cara, the retaining wall is ten feet high.”

Their mother shrugged, gesturing for them to follow her. “Come on, girls.”

Bruno groaned when Eva and Gia drained their wineglasses and did as their mother said. He should know the Rosetti women stuck together no matter what. They always had, and they always would.

Chapter Three

The white noise rushing through Lila’s ears sounded like ocean waves crashing against the shore. It drowned out the conversation about the weekend-long wedding. Lila’s wedding. Here, in Sunshine Bay. With three hundred guests.

She’d never fainted before, but she had a feeling that was about to change and snagged the end of the napkin with the tip of her finger, pulling it off the table so that it fell onto the floor. She ducked under the table as if planning to pick it up but instead put her head between her legs.

“Are you all right, honey?” asked a voice close to her ear, David’s strained whisper wending its way through the white noise.

She lifted her head above her knees, injecting everything she was feeling into the squinty look she gave David.

With his forefinger, he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and nodded. “I know. I know exactly how you feel, but what was I supposed to do?”

“How about saying, ‘No, Mom, Lila doesn’t want a big wedding’? Or how about instead of letting me be blindsided, you talked about it with me first? You don’t get to make all the decisions, David. This is my life too!” she whisper-shouted.

“I didn’t get much say about us getting married at the courthouse, did I? I want our wedding to be special, Lila. I want to celebrate with our families and friends.” He searched her face. “Admit it, your family is the only reason you want to get married at the courthouse.”

“So what if it is? Don’t my feelings matter? Apparently not, since you basically accepted the job to run Windemere without consulting me.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“It’s not the same. You were thrilled with my dad’s job offer, and you loved working for him.”

“I did, and I’m equally thrilled about my dad’s job offer. Can’t you be happy for me, happy for us? We don’t have to stress about finding jobs or a place to live now. You’ll be close to your family, and it’s a great opportunity.”

And more important to David was that his dad had offered the job to him and not his brother—even though, with his experience, David was the obvious choice. That wasn’t how things typically worked in his family. But David was forgetting one important thing.

“How do you think my family will feel when they find out you’re running Windemere?”

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