The Pairing(61)

We’re in Monterosso al Mare, the northernmost of the five villages clustered along the curve of Italy’s northwestern coast, Cinque Terre. Here, pastel palazzos cascade down steep cliffs to the bright blue Mediterranean Sea. Terraced farms line green hills, growing olives and lemons and basil, and rows of striped umbrellas cram the pebbly beaches below. It’s wilder and warmer here than on the C?te d’Azur, but the salt on the air is the same, and the resort beaches are almost the same, and so I am thinking—miserably, inescapably—about Monaco. About yesterday, about need.

I’m thinking about Theo between my open thighs, nothing but dried sweat and salt water between our skin. About how casually she settled there, ready for anything, while it took everything in me to keep my voice steady and my hands still. The weight of her gaze on my mouth, the pressure of her hand on my thigh, her damp hair on my shoulder, all the hysterical need I poured into émile so Theo wouldn’t feel it. I was so completely willing to do anything she wanted, and so afraid that the moment I touched her, she would know it meant so much more to me.

I wonder, as I watch her ruthlessly shred basil leaves, if that was the last time we’ll ever be that close.

Theo’s wearing boots today—her sensible Blundstones—with hiking shorts and yesterday’s linen shirt, still smelling of sea salt and expensive champagne. Perhaps she chose them for this morning excursion on a basil farm because a good viticulturist is always prepared. Or maybe it’s because I kissed her, and she’s going to kick me off a palazzo.

I hold a leaf between my thumb and forefinger and squeeze until the fibers collapse, but its new, wet bruise only reminds me of the shine on Theo’s lower lip in a dark alley. Theo’s mouth against mine for five long seconds before I broke off and I started apologizing. The cool laugh she forced when I swore I was drunk and caught in the moment, that I hadn’t meant it.

We walked back to the hotel in silence, and she hasn’t spoken to me since. Not on the bus here, not during our tour of the farm, not when we were set loose to gather our own basil, not even during our adorable old farmer’s lesson on making pesto. Presently, she’s focused on crushing leaves with a righteous, wholehearted fury. The table creaks under her mortar and pestle, bottles of olive oil rattling nervously.

“Are you alright, Theo?” Stig asks.

“I’m great,” Theo says brightly, which means she’s angry, and when she’s angry, she breaks things.

My hands are graceless on my own pestle, the taste of regret too thick in my mouth to get the flavors right. It took time to understand how I’d made Theo so angry she could leave me back then, but this time it’s simple. I’m supposed to be her friend, and I kissed her. All the flirting and innuendos, the platonic nudity and almost threesomes—I made them mean something she never agreed to. I’d kick myself off a palazzo if I could.

When we taste everyone’s finished pesto, Theo’s is vibrant and complex and perfectly balanced, exactly as creamy as it should be because she whisked in the olive oil at the end instead of dumping everything together like half of us did. Theo has never encountered a straightforward, useful skill she couldn’t instantly master by will and instinct. Jack of all trades, master of cunt, she once said. I’ve never liked anyone more than her.

I dip a corner of bread into my bowl and discover it doesn’t taste like much of anything. It’s the most pitiable, anemic thing I’ve made since patisserie school.

“You didn’t crush the basil hard enough,” Theo says, working her lip with her teeth. She slides a finger around the rim of my bowl, then sucks oil and herbs off her fingertip. “It tastes apologetic. Fucking commit to something, man.”

I don’t have an answer for that. She’s right, but even if she weren’t, I deserve to be bullied today.

When I took her hand on the cliff in Dover, I wondered how I could give her a reason to keep me this time. This new person with carpenter calluses where each finger meets her palm, who packs light and crosses oceans alone, the sturdier, broader Theo who cut off her hair—what would she see in me?

She saw friendship, and I was lucky for that. I shouldn’t have asked for more.


On the train that will whisk us down the coast to Cinque Terre’s four other villages, Theo sits across a little gray table from me and says nothing. She puts her headphones in, her knife tattoo flashing ominously as she folds her arms over her chest. I look at her and miss her twice, once as a lover and once as the friend I had yesterday.

Rilke wrote, Whispering sweetness, which once coursed through us, sits silently beside us with disheveled hair.

All day, I see double. The next village, Vernazza, is full of weathered stone stairs and beachgoing tourists. I see it, but I also see San Sebastián. I see Theo beside me in the sand, both of us fresh with the revelation that we hadn’t been abandoned after all, the sun laying itself over her shoulders, and wishing so badly I’d taken the next flight out instead of wallowing around an empty apartment for a week composing dramatic letters.

Farther inland, in the hills of Corniglia, we drink Vernaccia made from local white grapes. Fabrizio tells us how Michelangelo once wrote that Vernaccia “kisses, licks, bites, slaps, and stings,” and Theo says, “Damn, is she single?” I think of Bordeaux and a belly full of wine, standing before a fountain and daring to hope, the sting of hearing Theo say that losing each other was a good thing. And I think of Theo’s hands on a farmhand’s hips and wonder if heartbreak will fuck you if you learn to love it enough.