On the fifth night, a thunderstorm rolled in from the mountains. The power went out. The villa became a cave of shadows and the roar of rain on terracotta tiles. Most groups would have gone to bed. We, instead, sat in the dark living room and told secrets.
The villa was a beautiful mistake. The listing had said “charming rustic farmhouse.” The reality was a place called La Spettatrice – The Spectator. It sat on a hill overlooking a valley so still and green it felt like a held breath. The pool was the color of old jade. The only sound was the cicadas, buzzing like tiny, frantic telephones.
My phone buzzes. A new message in the group chat. It’s from Sana. A photo of a familiar terracotta roof, a familiar jade-green pool. A caption: “La Spettatrice is available again. August. Who’s in?” Summer Holiday Memories with the Ladies Special...
“That was six hours of research!” Priya shrieked, but she was laughing. We were all laughing. It was the kind of fight that only happens when you’re so tired of being responsible that the slightest rebellion feels like a revolution.
I flipped open the first page, and the smell of salt and cheap sunscreen flooded back. On the fifth night, a thunderstorm rolled in
Priya, ever the organizer, had a spreadsheet. Maya, ever the chaotic neutral, threw it into the pool on the first evening. I can still see the ink bleeding, the columns of “Beach Day” and “Winery Tour” dissolving into the chlorinated water.
Priya admitted she was terrified of becoming her mother, a woman who measured her life in Tupperware containers and quiet resentments. Maya confessed she had applied for the Berlin transfer that morning. She hadn’t told her husband yet. Chloe, the doctor, the one who held everyone together, whispered that she sometimes forgot to breathe. That she felt like a fraud. Most groups would have gone to bed
Summer isn’t a season. It’s a decision. And I’ve just made mine.
And when it was my turn, I said the thing I hadn’t told anyone. That I wasn’t sure I loved my job. That I felt like I was watching my own life from the outside, a passenger in a car I wasn’t driving.
In the image, it’s 4 PM. The heat is a physical weight. I am floating on a unicorn inflatable that has a slow leak. Maya is teaching Priya how to do a handstand in the shallow end, and they are both failing spectacularly, a tangle of limbs and shrieks. Chloe is asleep on a lounger, a book open on her face, one hand still loosely holding a half-eaten peach. Sana is sitting on the edge, legs in the water, looking not at the chaos but directly at the camera. She is smiling. Not her polite, workplace smile. A real one. It reached her eyes.
On the drive back to the airport, we listened to Robyn’s “Dancing On My Own” on repeat, singing so loudly the Fiat’s speakers distorted. Maya cried when we dropped her at her gate. I cried when I got home and saw my own reflection in the elevator mirror – sunburned, exhausted, and lighter than I had been in a decade.
