How to Breathe Underwater Read Online Free PDF Page B

millions on her. And still her eyes remain clear and she gets enough sleep at night.
    Joseph has run out of film. “You have beautiful teeth,” he says hopelessly.
    She grins for him.
    Drew looks at me and shakes his head, and I am thankful.
    When she’s tired of the dance, Aïda untwines the vines from her body and lets them fall to the ground. She squashes a plump grape between her toes, looking into the distance. Then, as though compelled by some sign in the sky, she climbs to the top of a ridge and looks down into the valley. Joseph and Drew follow to see what she sees, and I have no choice but to follow as well. Where the vines end, the land slopes down into a bowl of dry grass. Near its center, surrounded by overgrown hedges and flower beds, the vintner’s house rises, a sprawling two-story villa with a crumbling tile roof. Aïda inhales and turns toward the three of us, her eyes steady. “That’s where my mother lives,” she announces.
    It is such an astounding lie, I cannot even bring myself to respond. Aïda’s mother was the caterer at a party Uncle Claude attended during his “wild years”; my own mother related the story to me long ago, as a cautionary tale. When Aïda was eight weeks old her mother left her with Claude, and that was that. But Aïda’s tone is earnest and forthright, and both Joseph and Drew look up, confused.
    “I thought you lived with your dad in Paris,” Joseph says. He shoots a hard glance at me, as if I’ve been concealing her whereabouts all this time.
    “She does,” I say.
    Aïda shrugs. “My mother’s family owns this whole place.”
    “Really?” Joseph says.
    “My mom and I aren’t very close,” Aïda says, and sits down. She ties a piece of grass into a knot, then tosses it down the hill. “Actually, the last time I saw her I was three.” She draws her legs up and hugs her knees, and her shoulders rise and fall as she sighs. “It’s not the kind of thing you do in Italy, tote around your bastard kid. It would have been a
vergogna
to the
famiglia,
as they say.” Aïda looks down at the stone house in the valley.
    Joseph and Drew exchange a glance, seeming to decide how to handle this moment. I find myself wordless. It’s true that Aïda’s mother didn’t want to raise her. I don’t doubt that it would have been a disgrace to her Catholic family. What baffles me is how Aïda can present this story as truth when she knows
I
know it’s bullshit. What does she expect will happen? Does she think I’ll pretend to believe her?
    Aïda stands and dusts her hands against her dress, then begins to make her way down the slope. Joe gives us a baffled grin, shakes his head as if ashamed of himself, and follows her.
    “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” I call to Aïda.
    She turns, and the wind lifts her hair like a pennant. Her chin is set hard. “I’m going to get something from her,” she says. “I’m not going back to France without a memento.”
    “Let’s stop this now, Aïda,” I say. “You’re not related to anyone who lives in that house.” In fact, it didn’t look as if anyone lived there at all. The garden was a snarl of overgrown bushes and the windows looked blank, like sightless eyes.
    “Go home,” she says. “Joe will come with me. And don’t pretend you’re worried. If I didn’t come back, you’d be glad.”
    She turns away and I watch her descend toward the villa, my tongue dry in my mouth.
    These past few days Aïda has been camping on my bedroom floor. Asleep she looks like a collapsed easel, something hard and angular lying where it shouldn’t. Yesterday morning I opened one eye to see her fingering the contents of a blue tin box, my private cache of condoms. When I sat up and pushed the mosquito netting aside, she shoved the box back under the bed.
    “What are you doing?” I asked.
    “Nothing.”
    “It’s none of my business,” I said. “But if you meet a guy—”
    She gave an abbreviated
ha!
as if the air had