Blake raised his hand. "Um, does anyone want to go get a soda or something?" He motioned to the little store near the factory.

Mr. Campbell gave the OK, and most everyone wandered off, back into the factory, into the little store, over to the little lip of shade the factory's roof provided, sitting cross-legged, sharing iPods with people who'd left theirs on the bus.

"It is half-hour drive at most," Francesca said to the remaining travelers. She shrugged and re-collected the frog, but her cheeks held red spots of color.

Cameron still steamed. "I'm calling my dad. I can't believe they left us here! I mean, how irresponsible is that? The guy might have a loony pants for a wife but that doesn't mean he gets to abandon us in a foreign country."

Dylan Thomas shrugged. "I didn't think Borington had it in him. I have to admit I'm borderline proud of him."

Cameron glowered.

"What did he think he was accomplishing?" Tyler rested his hands on Cameron's shoulders, started to ma.s.sage her neck, ma.s.saging the glower out of her face at the same time. "I mean, it's like a half hour."

Which struck Jessa as really funny, not just sort of ha-ha funny but totally and completely hysterical. She started to giggle, just a little at first, but suddenly Dylan Thomas was laughing with her. "What a sad, sad little man," he choked out through his laughter.

"His one big act of rebellion," Jessa sputtered through her laughter. "We'll miss the appetizer!"

And then Tyler was laughing, and finally Cameron too.

Already another bus was pulling into the lot.

The Mediterranean coast leapt into Jessa's view-not there, and then suddenly everywhere, a sweeping expansive blue, curving white beaches, houses clinging to hillsides. Pressing a palm to the bus window, she felt someone settle into the seat next to her: Tyler. He wore the bowling shirt he loved so much and wore more often than he probably should. The blue one, with the circle that read "Gary" over the chest pocket.

"Hi, Gary," she peeled her eyes from the water, studied her friend.

"I have a two-part apology." He picked some lint from Gary's sleeve.

"OK."

"One. I'm sorry I didn't tell you about them kissing-Hamlet or the festival."

"OK." Jessa waited.

"And two. I'm sorry about the instruction manual. I thought," he paused. "I thought it would be fun. Helpful, even." Tyler pulled the stapled sheets from his pocket. "But...you know Carissa was never going to come on this trip."

"Because she had to baby-sit." Only as she said it, Jessa knew that wasn't the reason at all. Carissa would have never come to Italy, Santa Cruz or not. And Jessa realized, her stomach sinking, that she'd never even asked Carissa if she wanted to go. "Was she jealous of me? Because of Sean?"

Tyler shook his head. "Jess, I think she was jealous of Sean. Because he took up any time you had left over. I mean, you're a busy girl-don't get defensive," he held up his hand to quiet her response. "You take on a lot. Especially the last year or so. I think Carissa felt like she was starting to lose you."

"Well, you know what? Instead of kissing my boyfriend, she should have talked to me."

"In a weird way-and this is Carissa we're talking about, so it's very weird-but in her own messed-up way, I think that's what these envelopes were. Her trying to talk to you about it. When she knew you wouldn't be distracted."

Jessa swallowed her reply. Tyler was right. She took in her friend's face, his dark skin and eyes, the flop of his black hair-she was reminded of all the times he picked Carissa up when she got in trouble with a boyfriend or brought them both a latte to rehearsal, or the time Carissa got really drunk at Scott McKinley's party and he carried her all the way to Jessa's house, tucked her quietly under Jessa's quilt. Or the time he typed Jessa's honors paper for her at eleven at night when she sprained her finger playing volleyball. Tyler had spent most of his Italy trip so far making sure she didn't throw herself in front of the bus. She and Carissa owed him a Pantheon-sized thank-you card. "Why do you put up with us?"

Tyler shrugged a smile. "Entertainment value?" He held the manual out to her. "What do you want me to do with it?"

"I'm still trying to decide what to do with these." Jessa peeled open envelope #16. "I mean, if she's trying to tell me something, I can at least read the rest of them and figure out what kind of conversation she and I will be having when I get home."

Tyler looped his arm across her shoulder and read #16 with her.

Reason #16: The Beat Before and After. Sean never considers the before or the after. Doesn't consider why things are the way they are or where they are going. He never loved you in the complete way that needs the beat before and after to make sense of what's now.

We were friends then (before), we are friends now (after).

I'm sorry.

I love you.

Chills lit up and down her arms. Carissa knew she'd find out. So why hadn't she just told her? If the kisses didn't matter, didn't mean anything, she should have just told her.

Tyler tucked the manual back into his pocket. "Think Carissa realizes how ironic this is?"

"Probably not."

"Didn't think so."

Jessa folded the letter back into its envelope, watching the water, wishing she could believe her friend, not knowing what to believe, about anything, anymore.

The beat before and after.

In theater, Mr. Campbell always talked about the beats of a scene. The tiny little pieces that made up the whole scene, and how each beat had its own little world, its own intention, building blocks. And when they did scene work in cla.s.s, he always talked to them about the beat before and after. What came right before you enter the scene, what came right after. Those two beats are just as important, if not more so, than the ones in the scene being performed. The actor needed to know them, even if she wasn't performing them. They establish and conclude. Establish and conclude.

This was something Jessa loved about theater, about a play and scenes within a play. They started. They ended. So clean. Clear beginning, clear ending. No fussy, messy strings and roads that led nowhere. Life, real life, didn't always make for very interesting theater. The beats weren't always where they were supposed to be.

"You coming?" Ms. Jackson waited in the bus aisle next to her, resting a hand on the seat edge.

Jessa hadn't even realized the bus had stopped at the curb of a tall, pink hotel resting over the ocean, hadn't noticed Tyler's silent exit.

"Yeah. Sorry." Jessa pulled her bag onto her shoulder and followed her teacher off the bus.

The Mediterranean Sea at sunset was something that Disney must have tried for in all its princess tales, all its Disneyland ads, and then just simply failed at, instead landing in a slightly blurrier, slightly more metal version of the sweeping view in front of her. Jessa was certain she'd never seen anything like it, never would again, the sea a mix of every possible blue and the sky stained pink, bleeding to purple. Everything both muted and striking, hushed but full of clean, dynamic lines.

Jessa leaned on the hotel railing and stared out at the shifting water, the melting sky. The other students had gone to the beach or into the busy bustle of downtown Sorrento, but Jessa had decided to stay at the hotel. She wanted to finish her book, marinate in the view. Plus, she had three texts from Carissa she wanted to read. And she didn't want to look at Sean, who had tried, unsuccessfully, to smile at her during dinner. She didn't want to throw soda in his face anymore, but she sure didn't want to smile back.

Instead, she had slurped her pasta and craved a really big plate of nachos. At one point, Dylan Thomas had watched her over a spoonful of lasagna, but she couldn't meet his eyes.

She felt like she'd been in Italy for ten years.

She heard voices on the veranda behind her and she shuffled down the railing a bit, hid behind an ivy-covered pillar. The sky turned dark alarmingly fast.

Francesca and Giacomo were arguing, intensely, in Italian, their bodies in shadow. Jessa couldn't understand a word of it, but with all the mad gesturing, she knew it wasn't a polite conversation. And Francesca still had that stupid frog with her. She must sleep with the thing.

She was brandishing it like a wizard, and for a brief moment, Jessa expected a streak of light to emerge from the frog's mouth, like something out of The Lord of the Rings, something green or maybe even electric blue that would turn Giacomo into some boggy animal or to dust.

Then without warning, Giacomo grabbed it from her, smashed the frog into the cement of the veranda, and stormed off, his shoes slapping against the stone, growing faint, and then gone entirely.

Francesca stared down at her shattered frog, shards of green plastic fanned out around her. Jessa slipped out from behind the pillar and, without a word, knelt down to start picking up the pieces one by one.

"Grazie." Francesca dipped beside her, picking up a chunk that held the black orb of the frog's eye. "I am sorry for that. My son-my son is very confused."

"I don't know what I'd do if I was kicked out of school." Jessa placed a small handful of plastic shards into Francesca's delicate hand.

Francesca stood up suddenly. "Is that what he told you? That he was kicked out?" Her eyes probed Jessa's face.

Standing, Jessa bit her lip, averted her eyes. "Um, he said because of narrow minds."

Francesca shook her curls, her eyes slipping out over the water. "He left school, all of his own accord." Her voice was a sigh, all breath and water. "No one wishes him to leave."

"Oh." Jessa's eyes searched the stone for any stray pieces, mostly because she couldn't look at Francesca's face-her tight skin, her eyes such sad, dark pools. Several feet away, Jessa saw a small folded piece of tissue, a glint of metal poking out of its folds. Had it come out of the frog?

Jessa made a move toward it, this glinting fragment that had gone undetected, but Francesca was already slipping away into the shadow of the small hallway leading to the hotel lobby.

Jessa picked it up, a key poking from the thin skin of tissue. Frowning, she slipped it into her pocket, then turned back to where the sky had bled to ink.

#17: the dream.

about nothing.

Dawn was even more beautiful than sunset. Maybe-or maybe it was just sprawled in front of her and last night's sunset had already become lodged into that hazy place of memory that diminished things.

Jessa shook her head. She was starting to sound an awful lot like Stephen Dedalus from Portrait. She finished it last night on her tiny balcony by the light of a candle she'd found in the bathroom, and the whole thing-the night full of gathering storm clouds, the candle's flickering light, the ending of the novel that had left her sobbing into the air, the dark, dark roll of the sea-had almost been too much for Jessa. Stephen's words echoed through her head, I will not serve that in which I no longer believe...I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can...

Jessa thought about the holes in herself, the patchy places that didn't seem formed yet. She craved being able to express herself wholly, as wholly as she could. As an artist, sure, but mostly just as a girl. Whatever girl she was and would be, not just what school or other people expected. But it would also mean expressing herself in her friendship with Carissa. It would mean dealing with Sean in a whole way, figuring out what she wanted from him. How did she feel about him? The actual him and not just the cheating part.

And it would mean figuring out which road to take from now on, the busy bustle of her current schedule-the obvious well-traveled path toward success-or the one, like in the Robert Frost poem they'd read in English last month, the one less traveled, the one that would feed her need for beauty and light and words. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe...

Italy had given this to her-the time to sort it all out, the time to stop, think, dream, decide, to figure out why she kept trying to stuff all her holes full of activities and cla.s.ses and events-why even after she kept filling her life to the brim, she still felt empty at her center. Standing here, watching the silvery water, she was reminded of a scene from that eighties movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off, the part where Ferris says something about life moving fast and making sure you don't miss it. Had she missed her life so far?

Last night, she'd read all three of Carissa's text messages.

The first two said how sorry she was, that they should always tell the truth, that their friendship was so important to her. She was just trying to help with the envelopes, with the manual. Normal Carissa-excuses and love and moving forward. The kisses meant nothing-stupid drama. She was truly, infinitely sorry.

But the third had said: Did you love him?

Jessa had texted back: I don't know anything anymore.

Behind her, she could hear Christina rising, moving about in the early light of the room, getting ready for their ferry ride to the island of Capri. Last night, a thunderstorm had rocked the hotel. Flashes of lightning illuminated the room, and the sea had turned chunky and aggressive. Now the morning dawned clear and fresh.

But Jessa's text repeated over and over in her head like a mantra or an old-fashioned record that skipped and skipped: I don't know anything anymore.

"Let me see the manual." Jessa grabbed Tyler by his sweatshirt sleeve on the docks as they waited for the ferry. "If you still have it."

"You sure?"

"Yes." Jessa pulled her hair into a ponytail and waited.

He handed her the pages. She flipped to the instructions for Reasons #16 and #17.

This looks bad. I know it does. But she doesn't know the history. I'm sorry. Make her know that. That's the most important thing. Here's the truth. Sean and I had a little thing. During The Breakfast Club. It didn't last and it was totally stupid freshman backstage stuff. It resurfaced. Twice. It will not happen again. I never meant to hurt her. Please, please, Tyler. Make her understand. She'll listen to you.

Jessa saw the boat approaching. Everyone shifted on the dock, jockeyed for position. Jessa handed the manual back. "Why didn't I know? I worked on The Breakfast Club too."

The boat docked, and Jessa and Tyler fell into line. "I think it meant more to Carissa than it did to Sean. When he talked about it, it was just sort of a backstage thing they had. It didn't mean anything-to Sean."

Jessa hoisted her bag onto her shoulder as they began to move forward.

Tyler tucked his hands in his sweatshirt pockets, stared out at the water. "When you two started hanging out, Carissa was sure it wouldn't last, didn't want you to get all mad about nothing for nothing." He frowned, his eyes shifting to the students climbing onto the boat. "And then it did last. And then it was too late to tell you."

"She should have told me." She blinked at her friend. "You should have told me. Or Sean should have."

"We all should do a lot of things," Tyler said quietly. "But I think, most of the time, we don't."

Capri was cold and wet when they arrived, washed by the previous night's storm, but the sky and water engulfed them in a shocking, blue world, haloed with golden light. The sea stretched out like melting silver encircling the famous Odyssey rocks off the island. Sorrento had been so bustling, buzzing, but Capri simmered with tranquility, the hum of the surrounding sea, the fresh smell of last night's rainwater. The sun had won its battle with the few remaining storm clouds and only the most stubborn remained, silhouetting the floating lines of seagulls. Against the cliff, peppered spots of white houses and palm trees stood out amid thicker, denser trees. The sun played hide and seek with the clouds, casting layered patterns of light and shade over the island.

Jessa closed her eyes, wanting the sea in her ears forever, her face bathed in salt air, cooled by mist. They had walked from the main square, past the incredible Quisisana Hotel to the Giardini di Augusto, a park with striking views of the Faraglioni rocks. Jessa wished she'd paid more attention when she had read the Odyssey in freshman English. She would have appreciated it a lot more now facing this expanse of sea. Odysseus had sailed and sailed across it, alone on the raft. She flipped open her journal and chewed the end of her pen.

After a moment, she wrote: Can I be alone, lashed to a raft in a drifting sea, but still surrounded by the whole stupid world?

Ms. Jackson had given them an hour with their journals to prepare for their final creativity salon in Rome. It was hard to imagine they'd be heading home tomorrow.

She took a breath. What had Francesca said about these gardens? That they had once been a school for revolutionaries? Something like that. Jessa would have trouble mustering up a revolutionary spirit here; this place seemed more spiritual, more suited for meditation-or full-on napping.

She turned at the rustle behind her. Natalie froze in mid-descent down a little gra.s.sy slope, her own journal clutched in her hand. "Oh, sorry. Didn't know anyone was here." She started to retreat, tugging at the strap of her red tank top.

"Natalie?" Jessa closed her journal.

Natalie turned, her face wary. "Yeah?"

"Did you think about what being with him, like that, would do to me?" Jessa's heart raced and her hands sweated onto her journal cover, dimpling it. "I'm just wondering, actually, if you thought about me at all? I mean, I know we aren't friends or anything but...we've known each other. A long time. You came to my birthday party in fourth grade, helped me build a castle out of Popsicle sticks." Jessa felt the revolutionary spirits shift beneath her after all, and their shadowed energy buoyed her. I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can... Stephen Dedalus tapped at her skull, thumping her brain.

Natalie made her way down the slope, settled herself down next to Jessa, and blew a strand of blonde hair from her eyes. She appraised Jessa, picked blades of gra.s.s, brushed imaginary dust from her tight white sweatpants.