Fiction: Encouraged by friends, woman goes to Italy to reconnect with an old lover after many years

Julia felt the wind moving her hair as she drove along the coast road. Sunny for June, she was taking advantage of the sunshine to put the roof down and let her hair down. A long weekend with the girls. Their annual general meeting, as they called it, was where they would go over the year, celebrate, commiserate, drink, eat, dance, and then set goals for the next trip around the sun.

She was more than ready for this girls’ weekend. Especially after a long overdue ending. Her nose wrinkled at the part the breakup was going to play in the conversation. Her closest friends, Mimi and Stella, hadn’t liked Lars, but her friends knew her well, and they knew she would fall out of it, eventually.

Julia put it firmly out of her mind. Today was far too gorgeous to be dwelling on all that. Open-top car, loud music, and delicious things to eat and drink in the back seat. Turning up her favourite playlist, she flew down the highway.

The girls were already there, waiting. “Hey chicas!” she greeted them, turning off the music as she jumped out and was enveloped in four arms. “What were you playing?” Mimi demanded, “It was so loud!”

“Some Italian band I’m sure,” Stella rolled her eyes with a smile. Julia’s obsession with all things Italian had become part of who she was, though it was fun to tease her about it every now and again. Dancing around in a circle together, the excitement of the weekend was rising. Talking over each other, they led her inside to show her around.

“What a house!” Julia let out a low whistle. “This my room?” she poked her head through a doorway and looked enviously at the huge bed. Stella pointed down the corridor to another bedroom door.

“Thanks.” Dumping her overnight bag on the bed, she threw her jacket over the armchair. With a glance at the marble tiles in the bathroom, she decided a bath was going to be her first treat, with a glass of prosecco in hand. Memories of long shared bubble baths, drunk on love, lay deep below her conscious mind. They stirred, awakened by the lightness in her heart.

She followed the voices back to the huge living room. Opening the fridge, she saw it was full of wine. “Girls, is this our entire menu?” she laughed, shaking her head.

Julia was a lightweight at the girls’ weekends, falling into bed hours before the other two. It was astonishing that they had put up with her for all these years. Still, this weekend would be different. This weekend she was simply going to say, “Yes!” Yes to the next glass of wine. Yes to everything. Resolved, she pulled out a bottle of sparkling wine.

“Time for bubbles?” There was a resounding, “Yes!”

Julia turned her attention to the bottle. “Stand back,” she warned. It was a running joke that prosecco and Stella were a dangerous combination after one fateful party when Stella had opened a fizzy bottle and nearly blinded herself on the flying cork.

Mimi waved to them from the balcony, “Come out here.”

The breeze was light and full of scents from the sea that lapped onto the sand below them. Mimi had moved the chairs back from the table so they could sit facing the magnificent view. Julia slipped into her seat with a sigh of happiness.

“Cheers! Here’s to a great girls’ weekend.” They all clinked glasses while Stella held their pose for a photo.

“I love it when we get together,” sighed Mimi, her glass still raised in cheers. “It’s been too long.” She took a long draw on a joint, the first joint of many she would roll this weekend, and exhaled. “I’m totally ready for it.”

She reached past Julia to hand it to Stella. “Yes, to everything, right?” Julia reminded herself. Reaching out her hand, she took the joint from Mimi’s outstretched hand. The other two looked at her in shock.

“What?” Julia said with an air of feigned innocence. “Can I remind you, Mimi, who was it that rolled your first joint?”

“Very true! Joints and pizza. Go for it, babe. You deserve it.”

They had shared a house long ago. It was a friendship that was at times raw, revealing, and uncompromising, yet always accepting, supportive and uplifting.

“I love you guys,” Mimi said, contentedly.

“We’ve only just started,’ grumbled Stella. “Don’t get all sentimental on us.”

They all laughed.

Settling in, they began the slow meandering unpacking of the last year, listening intently, sometimes talking over each other. Food was made, and eaten and plenty more food was prepared. They moved inside as night fell.

Stella put on some music and Julia went to get more wine from the kitchen. She topped up their glasses, swaying to the music. She had always loved to dance. They somehow always got into nightclubs, no matter their real age. Recently it was at parties or to the occasional band at a pub. Or she would turn up the speakers, open a music playlist, and dance at home when her children weren’t around. Early adulthood was only slightly better than early adolescence in that their disapproval was less vocal but there were still looks of barely concealed horror.

Excerpted with permission from An Italian Affair, Amanda Burns, Fingerprint.