“Perfect.” Eli claps his hands, slides an arm around Rue’s shoulders, and disappears outside.

“What’s going on?” I ask Conor.

“No clue.” And yet, he looks considerably less frazzled than I feel. His hair is a little tousled, but his plain black T-shirt and jeans are crisp. His expression is unreadable behind his dark lenses. I almost say: There are lots of misnomers in the English language, Conor, but sunglasses are, in fact, glasses that should be used when the sun is out. I don’t, though. Because…What is the point? Conor is always going to withhold a huge chunk of himself, and I’m always going to resent him for it.

I refuse to play more games. Clearly, he was right all along, and distance is the only way for us.

“If this is about Bitty,” I say after a few minutes, once the four of us are in the red Fiat, Conor and me in the back seat, sandwiching Tiny. “If you woke me up before sunset because something happened to him and you want me to help you bury him beachside and decorate the grave with seashells—”

Eli snorts. “Maya, be for real. You would totally help us.”

“Of course I would. But I’d also need to cry approximately three hectoliters of tears, which would interfere with my shovel skills. I’d rather know it beforehand.”

“No one’s sick, dying, or getting interred. We’re just going to a nice place. Matter of fact, we’re here. And there’s our friend.”

He parks on an empty side street, next to a beat-up Fiesta that must belong to the man smoking a cigarette on the sidewalk. His polo and khakis look rumpled, and I’m starting to wonder exactly how many people my brother plucked out of bed this morning, but when Eli holds out his hand, the man shakes it with a smile.

“Who’s this guy?” I ask.

“Salvatore,” Eli says.

“And you know him from…?”

“Soccer camp in central Texas.”

I roll my eyes. “Right.”

“Salvatore here doesn’t speak English, but he works for the town of Taormina, and he’s going to open up this beautiful park for us.”

What park? I nearly ask, but we turn the corner, and there is Villa Comunale in all its morning splendor.

I read about it in my guidebook—this public garden that’s mysterious and romantic, full of monuments and botanical wonders. I even made a note to ask Rue whether she’d like to explore it with me. Of course, I meant to organize a trip during regular hours. I did not expect to watch Salvatore produce a brass key ring that would make a nineteenth-century prison warden weep with joy, and then unlock a set of tall gates. The hinges protest, as if bothered by the early hours, when he pushes them open, then closed again behind us. We start upward, footsteps light on the stone pathways.

I ask, “Eli, how did you even get this poor man to come out at this hour?”

“Money,” they all say in unison.