Theo had rehearsed an argument against Saturday on the way to dinner. It was a good argument, humane and sensible, and he forgot the beginning when he saw Mara laughing between his father and Patrick.
She had changed into blue. One sandal hung from her toes beneath the table. Bill was describing something with both hands while Patrick shook his head, apparently objecting to its size.
“There he is,” Mara said. “The authority.”
“On what?”
“Your father thinks the O is big enough to sit inside.”
“The letters,” Bill explained.
“I gathered. Otherwise quite a change of subject.”
“I wouldn't recommend it,” Patrick said. “You'll have to lean.”
Theo pulled out the chair beside Mara. She shifted her bag away and looked up at him, pleased in the small unguarded way which made having come his first good decision since reception.
“You're here.”
“You invited me.”
“People have found that surprisingly easy to survive.”
He glanced at the places. Owen and Nina sat opposite, and there were drinks at the extra two settings which had been added at the edge. The flowers occupied a little bottle. Mara had chosen something she could look across rather than around.
“They've all deserted her,” Owen said.
“Most,” Mara corrected. “You're the loyal remainder.”
“We were hungry.”
“And loyal.”
Nina raised her glass. “I'm keeping my options open until the food comes.”
Theo laughed. The argument had no place to begin here. He ordered a drink, took the bread Mara pushed toward him and listened to Patrick explaining why no photograph taken of him on holiday should include his legs.
“They belong to somebody else,” Patrick said. “Everything else has aged together. The legs think we're still in a different decade.”
“You could introduce them,” Mara suggested.
“I've tried shorts.”
“A formal dinner, then,” Theo said. “Somewhere they can meet your face.”
Patrick considered this with more seriousness than it deserved. Bill looked down at his own knees and said he thought his had come to terms with things.
The first plate arrived. It was smaller than Theo expected, hot crisp pieces on something creamy, and Nina moved her glass to make room. Everybody watched Owen take one before the waiter had finished putting it down.
“Well?” Mara asked.
Owen shut his eyes.
“Dangerously good.”
“I'll tell them to remove it.”
“No. I can take responsibility.”
Theo ate one. The outside broke in his mouth, salty and delicate; underneath was warm softness he wanted again before he had swallowed. Mara watched him, waiting for his face to catch up.
“Yes,” he said.
“I know.”
Bill took one too, then looked toward the restaurant entrance.
“We should go.”
“We've only just found something worth staying for,” Patrick said.
“Sue's expecting us.”
Patrick sighed, reached for another piece and rose. Bill kissed Mara on the head. He squeezed Theo's shoulder, said tomorrow was going to be a good day and went without inviting an answer.
Theo watched his father and Patrick cross the terrace. The extra glasses were cleared. Four people remained, with more food than they needed and nobody looking at him for a statement about the future.
“He'd have stayed for that,” Nina said, pointing to the plate.
“I should have bribed everyone with it,” Mara said.
“You didn't tell us what we were getting,” Owen said. “We trusted you.”
“Which was brave.”
“Which was hungry.”
She smiled, less defensively now. Theo put his hand beneath the table and touched her knee, just briefly. She looked at him. Then she moved her foot nearer his, and the little contact remained while the conversation went somewhere else.
Nina had spent part of the afternoon swimming and part persuading Owen that a short walk did not need a destination. Owen claimed he'd been deceived about both distance and scenery.
“She said there would be a view.”
“There was.”
“I could see it before we started.”
“Then you saw it from somewhere else.”
“At considerable personal cost.”
Theo asked whether the face-shaped rock had appeared again. Owen said it had, but only after enough effort to justify its own transport arrangements. Nina got out her phone and showed them a photograph: Owen standing beside a featureless patch of rock, pointing with conviction.
Mara leaned over Theo to see. Her shoulder pressed his chest. He held the bottom of the phone while Nina found the next picture, taken from the one improbable angle where the rock became a face.
“Oh,” Mara said. “It's quite handsome.”
“Thank you,” Owen said.
“I meant the rock.”
“It had better lighting.”
The waiter arrived with tomatoes and a cold fish dish while Nina was looking for a photograph in which the resemblance disappeared. They moved cups and phones, passing plates until the table resembled a meal instead of a demonstration. Theo served Mara before himself, choosing a piece she would like without asking.
She ate it and said, “Excellent. Thank you.”
The next plate did not come. They finished the cold dishes, talked, drank, and eventually found themselves watching the doorway with the collective attention of animals who had learned where food originated.
“I ordered something hot,” Mara said.
“It may be cooling on our behalf,” Theo said.
She caught the waiter's eye. He came across immediately, listened and checked what had been brought. A small misunderstanding emerged: the hot dish was coming after the next cold one, which nobody at the table had realized existed.
“We can bring them together,” he offered.
“Please,” Mara said. “We're discovering the limits of conversation.”
He laughed and went. Owen asked whether they should invent a new subject before they starved.
“You can each have a wedding speech,” Mara said. “Very short. It has to be about someone here who isn't either of us.”
Theo felt himself relax. She'd found the turn before the silence became uncomfortable, made them a table again with a single ridiculous offer.
“I want Owen,” Nina said.
“I'm touched.”
“Don't be yet.”
She sat straighter, lifted her glass and began.
“I first met Owen when he was explaining where the bar was to someone who had just come from it.”
“A complicated layout,” Owen said.
“He has remained helpful under similarly difficult conditions. I wish him every happiness and a map.”
Theo nearly lost his drink. Mara clapped once, loudly enough that a neighboring table looked across.
Owen stood, which improved the absurdity enormously. He made a speech about Nina's heroic performance at miniature golf, mentioning three sporting qualities she had not displayed and a fourth which she denied entirely. He thanked her family for raising someone who could remain calm in the presence of an ornamental frog.
“Brian,” Theo supplied.
“A very difficult opponent.”
They toasted Nina and Brian. The waiter returned with two plates and paused to find a place for them. Owen moved the flowers out of the way, then tried to sit while still holding his glass and the bottle, making an ungainly promise neither object would survive. Theo took the flowers. Mara rescued the glass. Owen sat.
“Years of preparation,” Mara told the waiter.
“Worth it,” he said, and left them to the food.
The hot dish was worth waiting for: white beans in a thick sauce fragrant with garlic. Theo tore bread, dragged it through the sauce and gave Mara the bit with more on it. She took it from his hand. Nina looked away to cut something on her own plate, tactful or simply hungry. Theo liked her for either reason.
Afterward they sat back, the table marked with crumbs and the bottle returned to its original place. The light had changed. Beyond Mara's shoulder the sea no longer looked blue, only a shifting pale space before the dark.
Owen and Nina disagreed about pudding, ordered two different things and announced they were going to investigate the bar after. Mara refused to let either pay for the meal. The argument lasted precisely long enough for Theo to see she enjoyed winning it.
“Tomorrow,” she told them, “you can repay us by being appalling dancers.”
“No preparation required,” Owen said.
They left together. Nina turned at the steps and waved. Mara waved back.
Theo reached for the empty plate, then stopped.
“You're tidying.”
“I know.”
“They have professionals.”
“I can stack things.”
“In a manner which offends professionals.”
He let the plate stay where it was. She leaned back, looking at him, her sandal now on the ground beneath her chair.
“That was good,” she said.
“Very.”
“Even without the full cast.”
“I didn't want the full cast.”
She looked down at the flowers. “I did.”
“I know.”
“I wanted to keep everybody where I could see them. Which sounds lovely until you say it aloud.”
He smiled. She picked a leaf which had fallen onto the cloth and rolled it between her fingers.
“You wanted to talk about tomorrow.”
Theo looked toward the entrance where he'd rehearsed the argument. It seemed a long time ago now, and unnecessarily solemn for a man who had just toasted a plastic frog.
“I was going to suggest we lost the band,” he said.
“The whole band?”
“In a controlled way.”
She laughed. “Where?”
“I hadn't got that far.”
“Six people. One of them keeps standing on things.”
“A difficult group to lose.”
“Exactly.”
He could have kept making the case. A meal, a few people, nobody introducing them as anything, nobody standing in blue with hope written across her face. But the smaller dinner had not made him want a smaller life tomorrow. It had made him remember the delighted months of planning it: Mara deciding the cake should be extravagantly good, him insisting a band could make even his relatives dance, both trying not to laugh while agreeing to enormous letters.
“I don't want everybody watching us,” he said.
She nodded. “They won't do it all night.”
“My mother's thinking about the first dance.”
“Oh.”
“I let her. This morning.”
Mara put the leaf down. He watched the hurt reach her face, then become something more contained.
“What did you say?”
“See how tomorrow feels.”
“Theo.”
“Yes.”
For a while neither spoke. The waiter came to clear their plates and offered coffee. They accepted. Theo was grateful for the task of moving his hands, collecting the empty glass from the far side of the table.
When the waiter went, Mara said, “I want the food. And the band. I want people to have a wonderful time.”
“So do I.”
“I wanted it with you when we chose it.”
He looked at her. “I remember.”
“I still want tomorrow with you.”
Her voice had changed. She wasn't selling him the party. She was offering the thing which made his good argument useless.
“I want that too,” he said.
She nodded, not quite smiling. Beneath the table he found her foot with his. She let it stay.
“Then let's have it,” she said.
He pictured the band playing and Mara laughing, his father inside an illuminated O if nobody stopped him. He wanted to be there for all of it. Sunday remained somewhere beyond the lights, paid for and possible, but he could not put that question inside this answer without spoiling what she had given him.
“Yes,” he said. “Let's.”
The coffee came. Mara added no sugar, turned the little spoon once anyway and put it beside the cup. He knew the movement well enough to miss it while she was still doing it.
They stayed until the flowers were the brightest small thing left on the table. When they stood, Mara searched for her sandal. Theo bent, found it beneath his chair and put it beside her bare foot.
She rested a hand on his shoulder to slip it on.
“Good rehearsal,” she said.
“For the dancing?”
“For finding my shoes.”
He took her hand when she had finished. They walked back toward the villa slowly, past people whose evenings were still beginning, and neither let go before the path became too narrow for them to walk side by side.