SUMMER SEVENTEEN XIV

WE PLAY TENNIS. Minho and I win. But not because I’m any good anymore. He’s an excellent athlete, and Tiffany inclines to hit the ball and then do happy dances, without caring whether it’s returning. Taeyeon keeps laughing at her, which makes her miss.

                “How was Europe?” asks Taeyeon as we walk back to Cuddledown.

                “My dad ate squid ink.”

                “What else?” We reach the yard and toss the racquets on the porch. Stretch ourselves out on the grass.

                “Honestly, I can’t tell you that much,” I say. “Know what I did while my dad went to Colosseum?”

                “What?”

                “I lay with my face pressed into the tile of the hotel bathroom. Stared at the base of the blue Italian toilet.”

                “The toilet was blue?” Minho asks, sitting up.

                “Only you would get excited over a blue toilet than the sights of Rome,” moans Taeyeon.

                “Jessi,” calls Tiff.

                “What?”

                “Never mind.”

                “What?”

                “You say don’t feel sorry for you, but then you tell a story about the base of the toilet,” she blurts. “It’s seriously pitiful. What are we supposed to say?”

                “Also, going to Rome makes us jealous,” says Taeyeon. “None of us has been to Rome.”

                “I wanna go to Rome!” says Minho, lying back down. “I wanna see the blue Italian toilets so bad!”

                “I want to see the Baths of Caracalla,” says Taeyeon. “And eat every flavor of gelato they make.”

                “So go,” I say.

                “It’s hardly that simple.”

                “Okay, but you will go,” I say. “In college or after college.”

                Taeyeon sighs. “I’m just saying, you went to Rome.”

                “I know. And I wish you could’ve been there,” I tell her.