Free The Sun and Other Stars by Brigid Pasulka Page A

bet even before the smoke cleared in Pompei, the two surviving goat herders dusted off a skull or a string ball or whatever they used in those days and started kicking it around in the ashes.
    “Is everything okay, tesoro?” Martina asks, because she is the queen of all women and has a sixth sense about everything.
    “Fine, fine.”
    “Do you want some fruit? I have plums.”
    “No thanks.”
    She clears away my plate. “How about a Coca-Cola, tesoro? Or a chinotto?”
    “Thanks, Martina, but I think I’ll go over to Camilla’s.”
    “Okay, then. See you tomorrow.”
    “Until tomorrow.”
    I go over to Camilla’s, where the average age of the small-souled drops at least a generation. It’s only Camilla’s second year running her bar, so she still has a makeshift boardwalk, hammered together out of wooden skids and sunk into the sand, the lights from the passeggiata providing the only illumination. Fede, Bocca, Claudia, and Sima are all sitting in plastic chairs around one of the outside tables.
    “Ciao, Etto.”
    “You made it.”
    Sima looks up at me with the same expression of confusion Nonna has. “Ciao, Etto,” she says, but her voice is like an echo, and before I can answer, she lowers her head.
    “Where’s Casella?” I say to Claudia.
    “Why are you asking me?” Claudia says. “Casella has his own life. I don’t control him. It’s perfectly feasible that he would be out somewhere on his own.”
    “He’s in the toilet,” Bocca says.
    “I still can’t believe you let him go to the toilet without asking permission, Claudia,” Fede says. “Who’s going to wear the pants in your family? You can’t just have him up and going to the toilet whenever he feels like it.”
    “Very funny.” She crosses her arms and leans back in her chair. “So, Etto, I hear you, Fede, and Bocca have some hot Australian dates at Le Rocce on Saturday night.”
    “I didn’t say I was going.”
    “Fede did.”
    “Maybe Fede thinks if he tells enough people, it will come true.”
    “Come on, Etto, don’t be such a downer,” Fede says. “One night at a disco won’t hurt you.”
    “You only want me to come and translate for you.”
    “What makes you think that?”
    “Do they speak Italian?”
    “No.”
    “And I already know what your English sounds like.”
    “English is overrated.” Fede grins, the same grin that gets the girls. “We have the language of the scorpion.”
    “Porca vacca.” Claudia rolls her eyes. “Are you still wearing that suit?”
    “What’s wrong with it?”
    Claudia looks out over our heads, down the passeggiata. “Oh, look. Here comes Francesca with her brand-new bocce. I’ll bet she’s still got the bandages on underneath.”
    “Those aren’t real?” Bocca asks.
    “Of course not,” Fede says.
    “How can you tell?”
    Fede shrugs. “I just know.”
    “I heard she went to Nice and got the two-for-one.”
    “Really?”
    “Don’t you remember The Nose?” Claudia hisses, then smiles at the girl as she passes by. “Ciao, Francesca.”
    “Ciao,” Francesca answers, but you can tell she gossips about Claudia behind her back, too.
    “I will never understand how she ended up with Gianni. He’s so ugly.”
    “That depends on what you mean by ‘with.’”
    “What do you know?”
    “Ask Paolo.”
    “She’s cheating on him with Paolo? As in, his brother Paolo?”
    Bocca shrugs. “You didn’t hear it from me.”
    “I can’t believe it!” Claudia says, her mouth gaping wide. “I can’t believe it. How did that happen?”
    “Gianni asked Paolo to tutor her in English before their vacation to London.”
    “Tutoring . . .” Fede says. “Why didn’t I ever think of that?”
    This is how they will squander the entire night, pretty much like they’ve squandered every night since puberty, on bickering, gossip, and other stupidaggini—who has and hasn’t had work done, who’s gotten together or broken up, what happened at the beach or at Claudia’s