She beams at us, like we’re supposed to know who that is, and a moment later, we are being seated at a prime table under a rustic straw-covered pergola, overlooking a small rocky beach. Instead of sand, there are slabs of limestone scattered with blue-and-white lounge chairs and matching parasols. The jet-set crowd is chic but laid-back.

Hannah and Lainey are seated across from me, and they keep up a running commentary on attractive men in our vicinity. They seem to be especially taken with a guy behind me who Hannah says is giving her Jude Law in The Talented Mr. Ripley vibes.

Lainey slaps the table and says, “Oh my God! Yes!”

I glance over my shoulder, then turn back to face them. “The foppish dude with the sideburns?”

Hannah nods as Lainey tells me to stop being so obvious.

I shrug and look out into the distance, my thoughts making their way back to Summer. I picture her now, warming up before a race. The determination and concentration on her face as she went through her routine, a combination of light jogging and dynamic stretching. Then, at the starting line, she always did one explosive jump, high into the air. I never asked why, but I assumed it was to wake up her nervous system—give it a jolt before the gun.

I tune back in to hear Hannah pointing to the cliffs. “That’s the spot where the Sirens bewitched Odysseus,” she says.

“The who?” Lainey says.

“The Sirens,” Hannah says. “In The Odyssey.”

“Oh. Never read it,” Lainey says, looking proud.

“Didn’t everyone have to read The Odyssey?” Hannah asks.

“I did,” I say. “Twice. In high school and college.”

“Well, I didn’t go to a fancy prep school,” Lainey says. “So don’t leave me in suspense—who are the Sirens?”

Hannah explains that they were mythological winged monster women, part bird, part human. “They’d hypnotize sailors with their angelic voices, luring them off course before drowning them,” she finishes.

“How ruuude,” Lainey says with a laugh. It’s one of her catchphrases from college, which she got from some sitcom.

“Wait!” Hannah suddenly says. “Do you remember what book Summer was reading the night we all met?”

Lainey shakes her head. “No clue.”

I look over at Hannah, thinking. I remember a lot about that night. I remember I was watching the Yankees–Orioles game. I remember thinking that all three girls were attractive and seemed cool. I remember being impressed with Summer as we discussed her running. But I do not remember what Summer was reading—if I ever knew in the first place.

“The Odyssey!” Hannah finally says.

“Oh, wow. That’s wild,” Lainey says. “Do you think that had anything to do with her wanting to come to Capri?”

“Tyson would know better,” Hannah says, giving me a loaded look that Lainey doesn’t miss.

“Wait. Why would Tyson know better?” she asks Hannah.

Hannah shrugs, still looking at me.

“I feel like I’m missing something,” Lainey says.

“You’re not missing anything,” I say, giving Hannah a warning look that Lainey also picks up on.

“Guys. What’s going on here? I have the right to know!”

“And why’s that?” I ask. “Why do you have the right to know?”

Lainey stares at me, incredulous. “Because it’s obvious that you told Hannah something you aren’t telling me!”

As Hannah not so subtly raises her eyebrows, Lainey ratchets up her inquisition. “Tyson! Tell me right this second! Did you and Summer hook up or something?”

“Jesus, Lainey,” I say under my breath.

“What?”

“That expression. ‘Hooking up.’ I hate it. You sound like a teenager.”

Lainey is undeterred and unabashed. “Fine, then. Did you and Summer ever kiss?”

I stare back at her, then say, “And what if we did?”

“Wow. Wow. Wow,” Lainey says, shifting her gaze to Hannah. “How long have you known about this?”

“Only a couple of days. He told me in Dallas.”

“This is crazy!” Lainey says.

“Why is it so crazy?” I ask, getting more annoyed and defensive by the second.

“Because. I always suspected that she had a crush on you, but I didn’t think she was your type.”

“I don’t have a type,” I say, bristling.

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Give me a break, Tyson. Your last three girlfriends are the same exact type—”

“First of all,” I say, now annoyed for multiple reasons, “three people is not a statistically significant sample size. Second of all, how are they the same type? Are they all lawyers? Are they tall?” I ask, thinking specifically of Laurie, my girlfriend preceding Nicole, who was a very petite yoga instructor.

“No. But they’re all drop-dead gorgeous Black girls—”

“So by that logic, Dog Guy must be the same type as Surfer Guy?” I ask, cutting her off.

“Okay.” Lainey nods, looking a little sheepish. “I get your point.”

“Besides,” Hannah says, “it’s not really about how someone looks. Tyson and Summer had a lot in common…. They both loved baseball…and books.”

I glance away, remembering how Summer and I used to pass novels back and forth. We loved all the same stuff and shared several favorite authors: John Green, Khaled Hosseini, Ann Patchett, and Curtis Sittenfeld. Summer had actually introduced me to Sittenfeld’s work, and I still had her copy of Prep. I’d thought about giving it back to her parents, but I couldn’t bear to part with it, as it had all of her little notes in the margins. Summer annotated books even when she was reading for fun, underlining passages, highlighting the names of new characters, and circling words she didn’t know. We had talked about teaching high school English once—how satisfying we thought the job would be. Looking back, I think we both discarded the idea for the same reason; at the time, it didn’t seem ambitious enough. I can see now that we were both thinking about life the wrong way, and for the first time, I wonder if Summer had truly been passionate about medicine.

“So were you guys in love?” Lainey asks me now.