She smirks and says, “Lisa? Angela? Pamela? Renée?”

I laugh at her old-school hip-hop reference. “Nope. Di Mezzo.”

“Mezzo means ‘middle,’ right?”

“Yep. You know—like mezzanine…or mezzo-soprano,” I say. “Legend has it that if you kiss your sweetheart under the arch of the di Mezzo, you stay with them forever.”

“Oh, wow,” Hannah says with a wistful look.

I assume she’s thinking about Grady until she glances at me and says, “Summer would have loved that.”

“Why?” Lainey asks. “Because she was so superstitious?”

“Well, yeah. That too,” Hannah says. “But I meant the romantic part.”

I look down, feeling uneasy, just as I did last night at dinner. It’s hard for me to get used to Hannah knowing what happened between Summer and me. Maybe it’s in my head, but I still have the feeling that she’s not entirely comfortable with it—or more likely, that she’s upset I kept such a big secret for so long.

I tune back in to hear Lainey and Hannah discussing Summer’s obsession with rom-coms. Lainey mentions Sixteen Candles and Mystic Pizza, then starts quoting from Notting Hill. “ ‘I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy—’ ”

“ ‘Asking him to love her,’ ” Hannah finishes with a sigh.

“She ate that stuff up,” Lainey says.

“Every bite,” Hannah says.

“And how about her love of Taylor Swift?” Lainey says.

“You have to give her credit, though,” Hannah says. “She was a Swiftie before it was cool to be a Swiftie.”

“You mean before Travis Kelce put her on the map?” I quip, trying to get a rise out of them. They don’t take the bait.

“Gosh,” Hannah says. “How much would she have loved the Eras tour?”

“I know.” Lainey sighs. “I thought about Summer the entire show. Especially when Taylor sang her old stuff.”

Same, I think, getting a sharp pang in my chest. I’d gotten tickets for Nicole for her birthday, but I’d be lying if I said my mind wasn’t on Summer at the concert.

The girls finally fall silent; then Lainey asks if anyone is in the mood to go shopping.

I make a face and tell her it’s too nice a day to spend inside stores. “How about a hike down to the sea?”

“Why do we have to hike? Didn’t you hear Alessandro say that we can take the hotel car down—”

“Christ, Lainey. This isn’t Machu Picchu. It’s more of a walk than a hike. And it’s downhill.”

“Okay, fine. Fine,” Lainey says, rolling her eyes. “I’ll do the stupid hike.”

“Attagirl,” I say, giving her a light punch on the shoulder.

—

After a quick breakfast, we walk over to the nearby Augustus Gardens. Hannah goes crazy for the flowers, naming them all, from the more familiar geraniums, begonias, and dahlias to a shrublike yellow flower called “broom” that I’ve never heard of. I agree they’re pretty, but I’m more interested in the history, including a marble monument to Vladimir Lenin, of all people. According to the plaque, it was commissioned in the nineteen-sixties by the Soviet Embassy.

The best part about the gardens, though, has to be the sweeping views in all directions. On one side, you can see the Faraglioni. On the other side, you look down over Marina Piccola and the incredible Via Krupp, a dramatic switchback road zigzagging down the cliff, connecting the gardens to the beach.

As we walk, I play tour guide, telling them that the road was commissioned by German industrialist Friedrich Alfred Krupp so that he could get from his own mansion in town down to his marine biology research vessel.

Lainey looks bored until I add a footnote. “Old man Krupp also used the path to get to his secret grotto, where he had sex orgies with local youths.”

“Oh my God!” she says. “Like Jeffrey Epstein!”

“Yep,” I say. “There’s always one of those guys.”

“That’s terrible. Those poor children.” Hannah shakes her head. “Did he go to prison?”

I pull up Wikipedia on my phone. “No criminal charges, but he was eventually booted off the island—and out of Italy, for that matter. Later, they changed the name of Krupp Gardens to Augustus Gardens.”

“They should have changed the name of his stupid path, too,” Lainey says, frowning. “Are you sure you want to take that route? Isn’t there a straighter shot down?”

“Nice try,” I say, knowing she’s just trying to get out of the trek. “But if it helps, I read that the walk is very Instagrammable.”

She smiles and says, “In that case, I’m in.”

—

True to form, Lainey takes photos the whole way down the footpath. Mostly, she takes pictures of the scenery or selfies with Hannah, but occasionally she insists on a group shot of all three of us, which is a tedious process. First, she recruits a stranger, never bothering to gauge whether said stranger is in a hurry or in the middle of a conversation or has their hands full. Second, instead of just giving her Good Samaritan creative license, she issues detailed instructions about her preferred composition. Vertical, please. Just a tad higher! Did you get the sky? Make sure you don’t cut off our feet! Third, and my least favorite part, is that once the favor is granted, she holds the stranger hostage while checking their work, deciding whether to release them or ask for “one more shot.” I keep waiting for someone to lose patience with her, almost hoping that they will. But not only does everyone indulge her every request, they seem downright enchanted by her.

Needless to say, her shenanigans slow us down quite a bit. By the time we get to the bottom, we are all starving, having long since burned off our breakfast. I suggest we get lunch before we hit the beach.

“Can we go to La Fontelina?” Lainey asks.

“Is that the beach club you showed me on TikTok?” Hannah asks.

“Yes,” Lainey says. “With an attached restaurant. Okay with you, Tyson?”

“Sure,” I say, consulting a map, then leading us down a path lined with wildflowers and sea grass.

About three hundred meters later, we arrive at what is clearly a very popular spot. The open-air restaurant has a line of people waiting to get in.

“Darn,” Hannah says. “We should have gotten a reservation.”

“Hmm. Let me call Alessandro. I bet he can hook us up,” Lainey says without missing a beat.

We haven’t even been in Italy for a full twenty-four hours, and she is already working her connections.

A few seconds later, Lainey looks over and gives us a big smile and a thumbs-up.

“All set,” she says as she rejoins us. “Alessandro’s best friend is Chef Mario!”