A welcome intruder, it was overwhelming. When Grace’s lips met the naïve skin below Harper’s panty line, a heavy weight crushed the bones in her chest and Harper felt like she was suffocating. Her body, shaking out of control, had never been so alive, never felt so deeply.
Grace moved slowly. As she inched closer, Grace’s tongue was against Harper’s thigh and she fought off an orgasm.
Purposefully, Harper stopped breathing. It was the only way. She had to hold on to the moment, couldn’t blow it like an eighteen-year-old virgin on prom night.
When Harper looked down, all she saw were Grace’s eyes, focused, devoted, determined. The bashful debutante, she couldn’t believe it was real, and she quickly put a pillow between them. But Grace wouldn’t have it—she grabbed it and threw it to the floor. Harper laughed nervously; she could feel Grace laughing, too.
Grace was soft and careful, doing things Harper didn’t know a woman could do, and to her surprise, with a level of expertise Rich never had. She knew right where to be. Just what to do.
As Grace split Harper in half, she held onto the bed sheet with both hands, crumpling it like wads of paper.
Harper squeezed tighter, again, trying to make it last.
Until finally, she let go.
Somewhere deep below the surface, as Harper’s young, fragile frame shook, her foundation gave way—just like in the earthquake—and everything about her crashed down the hill into the vineyard and olive grove. There was no more imagining.
The big one finally hit.
When Harper smelled herself on Grace’s face, something inside her released, popped open allowing all the fear which had consumed her to dissipate. With intention, she squirmed away from Grace and got on top; Harper was ready to dive into what she’d dreamed about since she was a teenager.
After the kiss, Harper traced Grace’s nose and lips with her finger until Grace’s tongue curled around it like a grape leaf.
She took her time with Grace’s breasts, sucking her nipples until they were nearly raw. As Harper worked her way down, she didn’t miss an inch of Grace’s body, never worrying about the way she smelled, the way she tasted. All the fear washed away.
When Harper passed Grace’s stomach, she looked up. Grace, too, stared at the ceiling, unsure where to put her gaze. She kissed above her panties and waited until intuitively, she knew Grace was ready. Outside, the clouds moved once more, forming something enigmatic, something not everyone could see. Just like the fireflies in the grove.
Harper stuck her finger in the top of Grace’s G-string and teased the skin underneath. After a profound breath, she pulled them off with her teeth.
At last, nothing between them.
This was it, Harper thought, as she pulled Grace to the edge of the bed. Her real debut.
When Grace’s pubic hair brushed her chin, Harper’s blood pressure raged, expanding then retracting. She could feel her heartbeat in her fingers, in her temple, even her toes. When she
finally got Grace into her mouth, it filled Harper with rich desire, sweet pearls of honey against her tongue. Grace’s bouquet was familiar, but foreign, like spices from another country. And just like Grace, Harper instinctively knew what to do. It amazed and delighted her.
Harper swallowed drops of Grace as she melted in ecstasy, using the duvet to muffle her moans. Watching Grace’s body, feeling her tremble was even better than her own pleasure.
As Grace crawled into her arms, Harper was overwhelmed; she’d never held love that closely.
“I love you,” Grace whispered.
“I love you, too. I’ve wanted to tell you for days,” Harper said. “I was afraid.”
Grace covered them with the blanket. “You have nothing to be afraid of,” she said. A silent moment passed as Harper tried to suppress her tears. But it was no use; she was too naked to hide anything.
As they lay together, deeply stirred, Harper unwrapped her heart and laid it before Grace. “You’re everything,” she whispered.
“You’re my everything, too,” Grace said, just as unguarded and vulnerable, “and you always will be.”
These flowery words didn’t come easy and neither did the others that night as they both revealed all they’d kept hidden, holding nothing back.
When Alvaro and Amelia rang the cowbell the next morning, up early again preparing another huge breakfast, the girls were pulled from a deep sleep. Both still nude, they were entangled in one another.
“We have to get up?” Grace asked, burying her face in the pillow.
“God. Really?” Harper agreed, groggily, but with a smile still on her face. It was their last day here.
In the kitchen, Alvaro met Grace and Harper with orange juice. He was in wine-stained jumpsuit. Each girl’s hair was a mess.
It was a sad day for all, as nobody wanted them to leave.
“Come soon back,” Alvaro said, as they hugged and kissed goodbye. In a black Mercedes station wagon, the driver waited patiently.
“We will,” promised a crying Harper. “Lo prometto.”
“Grazie.” Grace also sobbed. “Grazie mille.” She held on as they embraced one last time.
“Arrivederci!” Harper shouted from the window as the gates closed behind them.
Their 747 took off from Rome’s airport through a thicket of clouds. Together, Grace and Harper looked out the window with despair.
“I really do wish we could stay forever,” Grace said.
“Me, too.”
But school beckoned—their final year—and so did responsibility. Classes and labs. Clubs and sorority meetings.
Their evening flight to the states was a blink in time.
Around them, businessmen were buried in newspapers and the stewardesses left Harper and Grace alone after they served dinner, a filet with béarnaise sauce and baby asparagus. Sitting in first class made it easy to kiss and cuddle as they chased the sun.
They extended their layover in Los Angeles overnight so they could stay with Dean before heading home. One final bright spot before it was back to reality.
It was supposed to be a surprise, but Dean had clearly been tipped off. No doubt by Cilla. They could tell by his warm, but casual reaction when they arrived in the cab. He was washing his Studebaker Avanti with a chamois in the shade of the Coral tree beside his garage.
Lying in the grass, Dean’s greyhounds, Geisha and Boris, seemed to also be in on the secret. They hardly moved, lazy in the hot sun, as Harper and Grace pulled their luggage down his driveway. Of course that could’ve had something to do with LA’s record-breaking heat wave, which had pushed the thermometer to nearly 100 degrees that day.
Even with his doors open, Dean’s swanky Hollywood Hills
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home was a sauna. His guest room, tucked into the hillside and covered by a dense web of Japanese maple, was a little better than the main house, which had fans propped in every window.
“Is this going to be all right?” Dean asked. “I’m sorry it’s such a scorcher. I’d give you my room, but it’s worse.”
Hot or not, his place was just as Harper remembered. It always was. Since her youth, she and Grace had visited so many times they’d lost count.
Barely reinforced by the mountain, his crib, as they called it, was built on stilts and had a dramatic view of Hollywood.
Throughout the house, there were pitched beam ceilings and bamboo floors with stainless steel accents. His living room opened onto a lush outdoor deck where they sat, trying to keep cool, into the afternoon listening to old records. Ella Fitzgerald.
Nina Simone. The standards. The sun was intense, baking their skin, parching the brown mountains around them.
In her round sunglasses—nearly as big as the records playing—Harper was able to flirt with Grace without Dean knowing. At one point, Grace’s feet propped up on the table, Harper could see Grace’s panties; they were red, lacy, soaked.
Between cocktails, Dean recited a monologue on the second tier of his deck. He was
growing his hair out for a role—a Caesar cut for a tough guy.
As she watched Dean, Harper thought back to the first time she met him at Grace’s birthday party. He’d come as a clown, a cross between the Joker and Ronald McDonald, and made balloon animals before secretly taking off his makeup and showing up as Uncle Dean to join them in the pool.
The constant pillar, Grace had once said of her uncle, Dean was a bleeding heart dedicated to those he loved. Always there.
The glue holding the family together. And steady he was—unless headed to an audition or out on the town—he was always dressed in khaki shorts, Polo collar up, and Sperry topsiders sans socks with just a squirt of Versace cologne.
“What’d you say?” Dean recited, making a Mafioso face. He pretended to smoke a cigar. “I’m gonna break ya face if ya don’t tell me who killed Tiny B. He was like a fuckin’ brotha.” The face again. “Ya dead to me, Tone, ya hear me?”
With a snap, Dean was out of character and bowed before them.
“Bravo,” the girls cheered.
Like Elvis, Dean said, “Thank you. Thank you very much,”
as he headed inside. “Any requests?”
“Chaka Khan,” Harper said. “Stompin’ at the Savoy.”
“Of course,” Dean said. It was Harper’s favorite and Dean knew it, always played it when she was visiting. Chaka’s Eighties album with Rufus began shortly after.
“This is the best album she ever recorded,” Harper said, turning her face to the sun, soaking up the vitamin D.
Finally alone, Grace looked intently at Harper, her sunglasses on the end of her nose. “Is that right?” she said, after kicking Harper’s chair. That familiar flirtatious smile arrived on Grace’s face, the one Harper had been trying to interpret for years.
Fishing an ice cube from her glass, Grace ran it across Harper’s knee and down her shin. Cool drops of water dripped the length of her calf to her cracked heel.
With her tongue, Harper finagled out a sliver of ice and used it to make a heart on the teak wood table. “Mine,” she said, pointing at Grace before leaning over for a kiss.
Grace looked quickly at the house and put a restraining finger on Harper’s pursed lips.
“I heard Simons and Simons finally went public,” Dean said as he descended down the stairs.
“That’s what Mummy said.” Grace swished the mint in her mojito.
This was Harper’s cue to leave. She was reaching her breaking point; every time the word Jamie hit the open air it was like a spray of mace.
She wanted to get her camera anyway, as the light was nearly perfect. To cut the glare reflecting off the windows, Harper dug out a polarizing filter from her bag and screwed it on. It would be just what she needed.
From the upper deck, she began snapping photos of Dean and Grace chatting below.
Dean’s voice carried in the muggy air. “They’re grooming Jamie to take over after he graduates from Stanford?”
“I guess.”
A line of sweat burned across her temple as Harper focused on the top of Grace’s head. Standing above Grace and Dean, Harper caught several of them talking, their shadows long on the deck, stretching all the way to the box of herbs in the corner.
“Are you gonna see him while you’re in town?” Dean asked.
Zooming in, Harper was focused on Boris chewing on a bone when she heard this question. She waited for the answer before closing the shutter.
“I don’t know,” Grace said, hushed.
Harper pulled the camera from her face.
“Left a message. I’m sure he’s busy.”
“Are you guys still, you know, doing…whatever it is you do?”
Grace fanned herself with Chet Baker’s album cover.
“You called Jamie?” Harper asked.
Surprised, she and Dean both looked up.
“I just thought. I don’t know. I should,” Grace defended.
“When?” Harper demanded.
“Earlier.”
“When?”
“You were in the shower.”
Harper looked at Dean in protest. “But we’re here to see Dean.” She forced a smile. “And drink his vodka, and listen to his records.”
“I’m sure word’s gotten to him we’re in town. Mummy has Jamie on speed dial.”
With that, Harper turned and headed inside again. She’d had enough heat.
Grace found Harper in the bedroom, lying on her side facing the guest veranda. She was flipping through pictures on her digital camera.
“Bella,” Grace said.
Harper continued clicking through the images—them leaning against the Alessi gates, them in the bassetto sprawled on the couch, Grace topless in the sun.
On the bed, Grace nestled in behind Harper.
Was she allowed to be mad at Grace for calling Jamie?
Harper wondered. It was unclear how it all worked.
“I’m sorry,” Grace finally said.
“I just don’t get why you called him. Am I not enough for you?”
“Of course you are.” Grace sighed. While Grace searched for a reason, they looked at the photos together.
“It’s Mummy. I know she’d ask why I didn’t and I wouldn’t know what to say.”
“Mummy? Really? Why do you still call her that anyway?”
While they talked, Harper continued scanning the pictures, the ones of their countryside picnic. With the camera propped up on the basket, the timer had taken shots of them at dusk.
There were several like this, them toasting and kissing, Villa Mangiacane in the background like an impressionist painting—
the light captured in ever-changing shades as it set against the archways.
“I wish we were back in that field,” Harper said.
“Girls,” Dean interrupted. “We need to get going.” He sat next to them, saddled together on the bed. “What are you doing?”
“Reminiscing,” Harper said, still clicking through the frames. Grace sat up.
“Let’s go!” Grace said, suddenly enthusiastic. She stole the camera from Harper and turned it off.
Fortunately, Jamie didn’t get back to Grace in time, so the three of them set out for dinner alone. They packed into Dean’s shiny Avanti and hit Sunset Boulevard.
“That’s where John Belushi died,” Dean said, pointing out the Château Marmont. “And that sidewalk is where River Phoenix collapsed.” Outside the Roxy, a line of grunge waited for a show.
Dean looked so cool driving his Avanti, with its glossy paint, its supercharged engine purring under the hood. As they drove along, the three of them sitting side-by-side, the wind batted Dean’s salt-and-pepper hair, his thumb beat the steering wheel to the radio’s song.
The bench seat in Dean’s Avanti was covered in an Australian
sheepskin, the kind you see in old ladies’ cars. A scrap—a perfect triangle—was stashed into the side panel of the passenger door.
Harper found it and held it up. “What’s this?”
Grace grabbed the swatch and rubbed it on her face.
“Mmmm. So soft.”
The Avanti slowed at a red light. “It’s my codpiece,” Dean said, taking it from Grace. With a straight face, he placed it over his nether regions. “What do you think?”
This put the three of them into a laughing jag that would last all the way to the valet stand at Spago, the glamorous old-Hollywood establishment which had made Wolfgang Puck a household name.
Danny Devito was in the bar having martinis with friends and waved at Dean as they walked through the door. For years, Dean had bartended at Spago, even though, like all the Dunlops, he didn’t need the money. The family trust was constantly expanding, with profits from its investments filling the pockets of the heirs daily.
“It’s a great place to network,” Dean would say when pressed by Cilla, who never understood. “I got to drive Marty Scorsese home. He told me to call him Marty. One night after too many limoncellos,” he bragged. “He gave
me a huge break the next week in Cape Fear.”
After they were seated, at the perfect window table in the corner of the restaurant, Dean left to say hello to the staff of old cronies. They were in a huddle around a long tape of kitchen orders and greeted him with great affection.
Grace didn’t waste any time; even before the appetizers arrived her hand was wandering under the table. Harper pinched Grace and whispered “Stop” like a ventriloquist, her lips not moving, as Dean ordered his entree.
This only made it worse.
While Dean told them about the temporary move he was planning to Mexico—a psychological sabbatical, he called it—
Harper struggled for concentration as Grace’s fingers worked their way across her thigh. Harper could see Grace in the reflection of Dean’s wire-rimmed glasses, her blond widow’s peak, her sharp-as-an-ax jawbone.
Harper saw Grace everywhere.
Throughout the night, Harper did her best to push away conversation, keeping the focus on Dean so she wouldn’t have to talk, but the energy under the table was fierce. “Tell us more about San Miguel,” she said, crossing her legs.
“It’s a charming town right smack-dab in the middle of Mexico,” Dean said. “It’s old world. Colonial architecture. Lots of history. While I’m there, I’m gonna take some art classes.
Learn about oils.” He raised his eyebrows. “Maybe take a photography course.”
“Really?” Harper asked, excited.
“I’ve got a brochure at home. I’ll show you.”
“Where are you staying?” Grace asked.
“I found this great little guest house in the historic district.
Has an amazing view of the town. Was built in like 1710. And modeled after a famous Mexican homestead on the coast. It’s really open and airy. And it has a very sweet housemaid. I think her name was Esmeralda,” he added. “Her English was awful.”
“Can we visit?”
“You better. I’m counting on both of you after graduation.”
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