Mara took the bed because she liked it, then spent twenty minutes trying to make the decision sound fairer than that.
“You can have it tomorrow.”
Theo tested the daybed with the solemnity he gave every piece of furniture somebody else expected him to trust. He sat, bounced once and put his feet up.
“I'm all right here.”
“It's not a prison sentence. We can alternate.”
“I'd have to move my things.”
“You haven't unpacked.”
“I'd have to unpack.”
She sat on the arm of the chair beside him. His feet extended almost to its edge, leaving a small margin she did not find encouraging.
“You're too long for it.”
“I can retract.”
He pulled his knees up. She laughed, which gave him exactly what he had wanted from this unsuitable arrangement.
They'd gone for their cold drinks, found Bill at the bar with a man nobody had yet identified and spent much longer than intended hearing about a suitcase which had apparently gone to another country. The man wasn't upset. He had bought swimming trunks in the resort shop, and Bill admired this resourcefulness so much that he ordered them both another beer.
Now they were back in the villa, with a little over an hour before the welcome supper. Mara had wanted to lie down and do nothing. Theo had wanted to unpack. She had said this was typical and he had said typical was sometimes useful, especially if a person intended to wear clothes later.
“I'm taking the bed,” she said finally.
“Yes.”
“Because it's an excellent bed.”
“At last, a reason.”
She stood. He lay back, one arm thrown over his eyes. His shirt had come untucked. There was a small pale strip of skin above his waistband which she had touched so often she could feel it without moving.
In the bedroom, she shut the door.
The bed was excellent. She lay diagonally across it and stared up at a fan which turned with an expensive lack of noise. They'd chosen this room on a laptop between them while eating takeaway. The bath had been decisive for her. The terrace had been decisive for him, although he'd also been rather moved by the pictures of breakfast. Neither of them had said the villa was too much. They'd said it once about the wedding, a long time before the word too acquired something they could not laugh away.
She turned onto her side.
He was very close. She could hear the cupboard opening in the sitting room, then a pause, then the small clink of something being set down. He had got up to make coffee. She knew it from the length of the pause. He would be reading the instructions. She would press the button and discover what happened; he would like to know first.
It was impossible to sleep now.
She changed into a swimsuit and the resort robe, partly because they had paid to be people who wore robes in the afternoon. The robe was luxurious until she tied it. Then it divided itself beneath the belt to reveal far more thigh than seemed intentional.
She pulled the edges together and went to the sitting room.
Theo had made two coffees. He looked up, then back down at the cups in a way she disliked because she liked it.
“Does yours fit?” she asked.
“My coffee?”
“Your robe.”
“Haven't tried.”
“It's got a dramatic opening.”
He looked again. This time he didn't pretend it was an accident.
“So I see.”
“Do you think it's designed for standing?”
“Possibly for someone else's legs.”
“Try yours.”
“Why?”
“Scientific inquiry.”
He put his cup down and fetched the other robe. She stood holding hers shut while he went into the bathroom. When he emerged, the belt was tied neatly and the robe ended at his knees. He had put it over his T-shirt and shorts.
“You've cheated.”
“You didn't specify the conditions.”
She reached out and untied his belt. It was automatic, the swift undoing of something he had done too precisely. Then both ends hung between them.
His hand came toward hers, stopped and went to the lapel instead.
“Your coffee's getting cold,” he said.
She nodded. The robe was open over his ordinary clothes. It shouldn't have made her feel anything.
They carried the coffees outside. Mara sat with her knees tucked beneath the table so her robe could no longer make public claims on her behalf. Theo untied his and used it as a cushion. The terrace had warmed at one edge; beyond the shade she could see heat on the stones. He took out his phone and showed her a message from Kit, who wanted them to know that the pool was good and the man with the missing suitcase had now joined a water volleyball game.
“He's adapting well,” Mara said.
“Better than the suitcase.”
She put her cup down and looked at the pool through the trees. The week should be very easy. Swim when she wanted. Eat when she wanted. Dress in things she liked. There were no parents to persuade to sit beside one another, no rings to remember, no waiting to see whether the weather would let her have the expensive hair she had booked and then canceled with a relief so sharp she'd felt disloyal.
“I don't have to wear the dress,” she said.
Theo looked at her.
“I mean the wedding dress. I know that's obvious.”
“Did you bring it?”
“No.”
“Good.”
His answer was quick. She couldn't decide whether she wanted to be hurt by it.
“I'd have had to carry it on the plane,” she said. “With everyone looking.”
He nodded. “I'm glad you didn't have to.”
That was better. It was also worse. She had enjoyed carrying the possibility of that dress into rooms before it existed. Looking at pictures, imagining the weight of the skirt, asking Leah to come to fittings. She had not been faking any of that. She had wanted to be his wife.
Theo reached for his cup. “Did you bring the other one?”
“The party dress? Yes.”
“Good.”
She smiled. “You can't answer everything with good.”
“I have six days. Watch me.”
There was a knock at the gate.
Sue came through before Mara could decide whether robes at four in the afternoon required an explanation. Her mother-in-law, who wasn't going to be her mother-in-law, had changed into a dress with enormous white flowers. Behind her Leah wore the same trousers she'd worn on the plane, which Mara found encouraging.
“We're just looking,” Sue said. “Oh, how lovely.”
She walked to the edge of the terrace. “Bill! You can see the sea.”
Bill's voice came from beyond the gate. “Can see it here too.”
“Come and look properly.”
Mara got up to make space. Leah looked at the robe, then lifted her eyes in a silent question. Mara answered by shaking her head. Leah nodded once and turned toward Sue.
“We were going to go for a walk,” she said. “I thought Mara might like some air.”
“Plenty of air here,” Sue said, genuinely pleased by the view.
Bill appeared and looked at the sea. He agreed it was the sea. Theo offered him coffee. He declined because he had been drinking beer, then said he would have some if Theo was making it anyway.
Sue went through the sitting room to inspect the bedroom. Mara followed her, suddenly protective of a space she had occupied for less than half an hour.
“Oh, it's gorgeous,” Sue said. “Look at that.”
It was the bed. Mara looked at it too.
“We paid for gorgeous.”
“You did.” Sue touched the smooth cover with her fingertips. “I always said it would be worth it.”
For a moment Mara didn't know which part she meant.
Sue went to the window and asked whether the shutters opened. Mara said she hadn't tried. She could hear Theo answering Bill's question about the coffee machine; Leah had stayed on the terrace. Everybody was moving through their villa as if it were the central house in a family they still expected to have.
“He's very pleased to be here,” Sue said.
“So am I.”
“It will do you both good.”
Mara turned toward her. Sue smiled, not unkindly, and Mara couldn't find a way to say what she needed without making it sound like an objection to a holiday.
“We wanted a week,” she said.
“Of course you did.”
Sue looked at the robes, at Mara's suitcase, at the large empty bed. Mara tightened her belt.
“We're sleeping separately,” she said.
Sue's expression changed just enough to make her regret saying it, although it was precisely the thing she'd wanted said.
“You don't need to tell me that.”
“I thought—”
“I'm looking at the room, sweetheart.”
Sue came back past her and kissed her cheek. Mara stood in the bedroom doorway, furious in a way that had nowhere useful to go. She liked this woman. She had been loved by her, welcomed by her, fed until saying no was a serious physical task. She wanted her to stop calling her sweetheart when the word included a future she had already declined.
On the terrace, Leah said, “Walk?”
Mara nodded.
She changed, leaving the robe in a heap on the bed. When she came out Theo had tied his again and was listening to Bill explain that the pool bar served something with an unexpectedly substantial amount of ice.
“We're going for air,” she told him.
He glanced toward the perfectly adequate air beyond the terrace and then looked at Leah. Something in his face made Mara want to stay and explain that she wasn't assembling a prosecution.
“See you at supper,” she said instead.
“Yes.”
Leah waited until they had gone beyond the villas before speaking. There were people carrying towels on the path, and a small boy arguing that he had never in his life needed shoes. Mara moved aside for him and then followed Leah toward the lower terrace.
“It's a very nice room,” Leah said.
“It is.”
“With two robes.”
“Most things are coming in twos. We've selected quite a particular holiday.”
Leah smiled despite herself.
“We're fine,” Mara said.
“You don't have to be fine all week.”
“I'm saying we're not doing anything.”
“I didn't ask.”
“You looked.”
Leah stopped beside a wall and turned to face her. “I looked because Sue was looking, and I wanted you to know I wasn't going to leave you alone with it.”
Mara had been ready for a different answer. She leaned against the wall.
“I know. Sorry.”
“I like him.”
“I know that too.”
“I'd like to be allowed to like him this week.”
Mara looked back toward the villas, though theirs wasn't visible. “I would as well.”
Leah took off her sunglasses. There were marks at the sides of her nose from the frames. She looked tired, in an ordinary older-sister way that made Mara feel briefly younger than thirty-four.
“He hasn't stopped wanting children,” Leah said.
“I haven't started.”
“All right.”
“I'm quite allowed to drink coffee with him.”
“You are.”
“And use the robes.”
“I would never take a robe from you.”
They both laughed. Leah put her glasses back on and looped an arm through Mara's.
“Come on. Daniel's found somewhere that sells ice cream.”
“Where is he?”
“I said I'd catch him up.”
“When?”
“A while ago.”
They went down the steps together. At the bottom the air was warmer and smelled faintly of sun cream and something being cooked. Daniel sat at a table with two empty paper cups and a third still full. He smiled when he saw Leah, then lifted the full cup.
“This was yours,” he said.
“Sorry.”
“It's become a beverage.”
Mara laughed. Leah leaned down and kissed him, taking the cup out of his hand.
“I'll drink it,” she said.
“Heroic.”
He drew a chair closer with his foot. Mara could not tell whether it was for her or for Leah. She took the other one and looked toward the water beyond the terrace.
She had been at Casa Brisa for roughly four hours. She had untied Theo's belt, announced their sleeping arrangements to his mother, become angry at her sister for defending them and interrupted somebody else's ice cream.
The sea was still beautiful. She ordered herself two scoops and asked whether they could put them in a cone, so that at least one thing about the afternoon would require an immediate decision.