Vivian moved the husband's place card before the wife finished her drink.
It was a small alteration, three inches to the left, but it put a woman named Tessa between them. Tessa owned a satellite company and had no interest in either person's marriage. She could talk through a divorce without noticing it had begun.
“Is that where you want her?” Owen asked.
“It's where I want him.”
He put down the second glass. He had been the Wrens' house manager for eight years and no longer wasted time concealing his opinions from Vivian. His opinions usually concerned people who wanted twenty guests to feel spontaneously welcome at six.
“He asked for the view.”
“He'll have it. Tessa's a very attractive woman.”
The dining terrace faced the water, though this Thursday afternoon the sea looked secondary to the table. Pale cloth, green glasses, branches of white orchids laid flat rather than standing up to obstruct a conversation. Vivian had rejected the florist's first proposal, a forest that would have made everybody look like a visiting horticulturist. Now there was room for faces. She stood at the end of the table, pleased.
Down on the lawn, two men carried a white sofa past the pool. Beyond them a woman swam with the calm assurance of someone who did not need to count her lengths. Celeste's hair, tied high, stayed dry.
Vivian's phone vibrated against her thigh.
“Don't put the candles out yet,” she told Owen. “They look like an apology in daylight.”
She walked toward the side garden before answering. “You're early.”
“For what?” Lena Carrow said. “Your next lie?”
“Our appointment.”
“I enjoy being punctual for both.”
Through a gap in the hedge Vivian could see Celeste turn in the pool, one arm reaching. She stepped out of sight.
“Sunday is confirmed,” Vivian said. “The intermediary has the funds. The carrier knows the appointment.”
“And you?”
“I'll be there.”
“Personally.”
“We've had this conversation.”
“I spent a million dollars having it. I like to hear the expensive parts again.”
The million was Lena's separate fee to Vivian, already in Vivian's account. It was not part of the eight million being held for The Swimmer. Vivian had negotiated that purchase for Seabrook Collection LLC, which was Lena's company, and Celeste had signed the seller's agreement on Wednesday morning without asking to meet the person behind it. One of yours, she'd said. Thank God. Then she'd approved the painting's removal to the intermediary for inspection and packing. Its former place in the west sitting room was a pale rectangle between two wall lights.
Celeste knew what she was selling. She did not know to whom.
“Did you get the invitation?” Vivian asked.
“Seabrook got a very nice invitation. Apparently it's been invited to dinner.”
“The invitation was addressed to the representative.”
“Then Seabrook will buy itself a dress.”
“Lena.”
“Don't do that voice. You sound like my mother when I order another bottle.”
Vivian leaned a shoulder against the warm stucco wall. The garden smelled of citrus and the sharp green water released by cut stems. She had taken Lena's money knowing exactly why the buyer wanted this painting. Beauty, certainly. It was a beautiful painting. But Lena wanted Celeste to see it leave, and wanted to be in the room afterward, welcomed as a collector rather than tolerated as Frances Carrow's daughter.
Vivian had sold both things.
“You don't need to make the arrival a performance,” she said.
“Then why am I paying you?”
A man laughed on the other side of the garden, Nicholas, probably on a call. Vivian knew the laugh even when it wasn't intended for her. She waited until his footsteps passed.
“You'll be introduced properly. Celeste extended the invitation herself. Nobody's sneaking you through a kitchen.”
“You say kitchen like you've never had fun in one.”
“Not here.”
Lena laughed. There was something flat and unguarded in the sound that Vivian liked. “Come for lunch tomorrow. We can decide how unbearable I should be.”
“I have appointments.”
“Cancel the one that pays less.”
After the call Vivian stayed in the garden a moment. A bee worked at a flower near her hand, missing it twice before finding a place to land. She could leave now, go home, take off the cream silk dress whose tie had been chosen with Nicholas in mind. There was no financial reason to spend this evening solving a quarrel about a chair.
She put her phone away and went to look for Celeste.
The house was cool enough to raise the skin on her bare arms. She walked through the sitting room without turning toward the absent Swimmer. The two wall lights were on, illuminating nothing. Somebody had centered a ceramic bowl beneath the space. Vivian moved it to the far end of the console. It was not the bowl's fault, but the arrangement looked cowardly.
“I wondered who'd done that.”
Celeste stood at the doorway in a wet black swimsuit, a towel around her shoulders. At forty-nine, she wore neither the determined fitness nor the cultivated softness Vivian saw in women who expected to be assessed. She had a strong body, a sun mark at her throat, and a habit of holding still while other people adjusted themselves.
“The bowl?” Vivian asked.
“Made it look like a hotel.”
“A good hotel.”
“Worse.”
She came into the room, leaving a drop of water on the stone floor. Vivian resisted the familiar impulse to fetch something for it.
“I hate that wall,” Celeste said.
“You can change your mind about the next painting. It's not an engagement.”
“You're very casual about people giving things up.”
Vivian looked at her. Celeste smiled, not quite enough to settle the question of what she'd meant.
“Come upstairs. I have something for you.”
“If it's another seating change, I've already solved it.”
“Darling, I don't give gifts that cost me nothing.”
Upstairs, the doors to the bedroom were open to a view of the pool. Nicholas had left a jacket over a chair. One pocket was turned out as if he'd been searched. Celeste stepped over a pair of his shoes without looking down and took a narrow box from her dressing table.
“Not on Sunday,” she said. “Sunday's for things people can watch me give.”
Inside was a bracelet, an old gold chain with a heavy flat clasp. No diamonds, no clever little logo. Vivian lifted it. It was warm from the room, heavier than she expected.
“You were wearing this in New York.”
“And you were admiring it.”
“I admired your coat too. I was polite enough to leave you in it.”
“That was generous.”
Celeste held out her hand for Vivian's wrist. She fastened the bracelet, turning the clasp to the inside, where the skin was fine and pale.
“It looks better on you.”
“It doesn't.”
“Let me have one gracious lie.”
Vivian turned her wrist. The chain slid, stopped at the heel of her hand. She had her own jewelry. She could have bought this without consulting a bank balance. She could not have bought the fact that Celeste had taken it off and thought of her.
“Thank you.”
Celeste touched the inside of her elbow. “Don't become formal. It's horrible.”
From downstairs came the sound of something breaking. Not a great crash; a little bright end to a thing. Celeste closed her eyes.
“If it's the Portuguese plates, I'm going to swim to Cuba.”
“You'd have to pack.”
“You'd pack for me.”
There it was, as natural as the towel slipping from her shoulder. Vivian glanced at the jacket on the chair. She knew where Nicholas would put his hand if he found her here alone. For a moment, she wanted to tell Celeste something awful just to interrupt the ease with which Celeste expected her to stay.
Instead she said, “You promised me one evening off after this.”
“I was thinking of more than an evening.”
Celeste sat at the dressing table. Without asking, Vivian picked up the comb beside the mirror. She had done it a hundred times, during travel, before a dinner, in a hotel where Celeste had lost patience with the person paid to do her hair. Today the wet strands resisted. Celeste's head moved back under the pressure.
“Am I hurting you?”
“No.”
In the mirror Celeste watched her work. Vivian separated a knot with her fingers. The gold bracelet dragged lightly along Celeste's shoulder.
“Nicholas wants the sailboat people beside him tonight,” Celeste said.
“They're on his left.”
“All of them?”
“Only the ones who still own the boat.”
Celeste's mouth moved, almost a laugh. “And Peter?”
“Far enough from his wife to imagine it was your idea.”
“Was it?”
“It's your house.”
“That isn't an answer.”
Vivian drew the comb through the last length of hair and set it down. She did not answer the second time either.
Celeste reached back and took her hand, keeping her beside the chair. “I don't want you at the end of the table.”
“Somebody has to be there.”
“Put somebody else there.”
Vivian could see their joined hands in the mirror. Below the balcony, the two men had stopped beside the sofa. One crouched to adjust its leg; the other waited with the cushions against his chest. The house was full of people making things seem as if they had simply happened.
“I'll move,” she said.
At six, the guests began arriving in clothes that looked easier to wear than they were. Vivian stood with Celeste at the entrance until Nicholas came down, tying his watch. He kissed his wife's cheek, then Vivian's. His hand settled briefly against the small of Vivian's back.
“There she is,” he said. “The woman who makes us possible.”
“How exhausting for her,” Celeste said.
“She enjoys it.”
He looked at Vivian as he said it. She met his eyes. In a way that made almost everything harder, he was right.
Owen appeared beside them with an empty tray. “Mrs. Wren, the first guests are asking about the painting.”
“Tell them I've sold it,” Celeste said.
“They asked who bought it.”
She turned to Vivian. “What can we say?”
Vivian felt the weight of the bracelet when she lifted her glass.
“A private collection,” she said. “Someone who has wanted it a long time.”