Mara's farewell dinner began losing people before she had chosen the napkins.
Freya called while she was standing near the lower terrace restaurant on Friday afternoon, looking at tables whose shade would become something softer by evening. Mara answered with a view already assembled in her head: twelve people, perhaps fourteen, long plates passed across, something cold and extravagant to drink.
“What time?” Freya asked.
“Eight?”
“Oh.”
“Too late?”
“We're going out.”
“Who's we?”
“Kit and me. Jess and Malcolm told us about somewhere. We thought we'd see what happens.”
Mara looked at the tables. The imagined people were still there, warm and amused and not yet informed that they had other plans.
“You said it sounded good.”
“It does. Your dinner sounds good.”
“But?”
“But we want to go somewhere else.”
There was no graceful place for the sentence to go. Mara rubbed one thumb along the side of her phone.
“You could come later.”
“We might. Don't make a seat depend on it.”
“I hadn't booked.”
“Good.”
Freya paused. Mara knew her well enough to recognize the pause before an offer to make things easier.
“I can help you find people who want dinner,” she said.
“It's not a recruitment drive.”
“All right.”
Mara shut her eyes for a moment.
“Sorry.”
“It's fine.”
“I wanted one last evening with everybody.”
“Tomorrow is everybody.”
“Tomorrow is a stage.”
“Tonight could be just dinner.”
Mara looked toward the small tables at the edge of the terrace. There was a place for two beneath a light not yet lit. She didn't want just dinner. She wanted the boat's laughter, Thursday's intimacy, her sister's face beside Daniel's, all of it brought together in one evening she could remember without wondering which bits other people had enjoyed elsewhere.
“Have a good time,” she said.
“You too.”
They ended the call. Mara stayed where she was until a waiter asked whether he could help. She said she was choosing a table and immediately sounded like someone who knew exactly how many people she expected.
“For how many?” he asked.
“I'll confirm shortly.”
He smiled and showed her which places would be available. She thanked him, then went to find the guests who had not yet chosen something better.
Several had arrived that day. They were pleased to see her, tired from travel, not especially interested in making their first evening into somebody else's last. One colleague wanted to swim before eating. Owen said he and Nina would come, then asked whether it would be acceptable to eat so much they regretted it afterward. Mara approved the principle immediately.
Sue had made a family arrangement with Janette and two cousins who hadn't yet heard the entire hat story. Bill said he could stop for a drink first. Patrick appeared willing to follow Bill anywhere which promised a different part of the menu.
Mara took the shrinking number back toward reception. On the way she heard a car before she saw it.
Daniel pulled into the entrance with the roof down and Leah beside him, her hair in a shape Mara had never seen it consent to. Both were laughing. Daniel stopped, switched off the engine and sat for a moment with his hands still on the wheel, looking at his wife.
Leah turned toward Mara and raised an arm.
“We've returned.”
“I can see.”
“Not entirely intact.”
She stood awkwardly, one hand on the door, and came out carrying a bag whose corners had acquired damp patches. Daniel got out on the other side and stretched as if he had been part of the car for several hours.
“Good day?” Mara asked.
“Wonderful,” Leah said.
She looked wonderful too. Not tidy, not especially rested, but pleased in a way that did not arrive first through checking Mara's mood. There was salt on one cuff of Daniel's shirt. Her shoulders were pink. The white fabric had creased across her back, and she'd put a clip in her hair without successfully containing any of it.
“We went the wrong way,” Daniel said.
“Once.”
“Then once in the other direction.”
“Which was part of correcting it.”
He grinned. “She told me to follow a wall.”
“It was a very convincing wall.”
They laughed again. Mara smiled, waiting for the part of the story which would make it as funny for her. It didn't quite arrive. She understood the wrong turn, the wall, the pleasure of being with someone who was prepared to make a mistake into the rest of the day. She also understood she'd been absent from every minute of it.
“There was a cove,” Leah said. “We swam. Then found lunch.”
“Late lunch,” Daniel added.
“Very late. Very good.”
“And the man brought something we hadn't ordered.”
“Which you ate.”
“I was being polite.”
Leah put a hand on his arm. He looked down at her. For a second Mara felt as if she ought to find somewhere else to stand, although she'd been there before either of them arrived.
“I thought we might have dinner at eight,” she said.
Her sister looked at her, still smiling but with something beginning to recede behind it.
“I said don't wait.”
“I know. I'm just telling you.”
“We're going to stay out together tonight.”
“You just got back.”
Daniel put the key into his pocket.
“We're going to shower,” Leah said. “Then go again.”
Mara looked at the car. The seats still held the shape of the day, sand at one edge, an empty water bottle beneath Daniel's place, a folded map abandoned where Leah had apparently stopped trusting it.
“You can come after,” she said.
Leah was quiet for a moment.
“We probably won't.”
Mara nodded. It was an unnecessarily big nod, as though somebody had made a proposal requiring formal acknowledgement. She hated that she'd done it.
“Have a good evening,” she said.
“Mara.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
Leah stepped closer, kissed her cheek and hugged her with the warm, tired body of somebody who had been swimming in another part of the island. Mara held her. She smelled sun cream and Daniel's shirt.
“You look happy,” she said quietly.
“I am.”
Her sister let go. Daniel put his arm around Leah as they went toward their room. Neither looked guilty enough to satisfy the part of Mara she was trying not to encourage.
She stayed near the car for another moment, then went back to the restaurant.
“Four,” she told the waiter. “And two people stopping for a drink.”
He showed her a table near the wall, under a tree whose leaves moved in the warm air. It was a lovely table. That annoyed her briefly, then made her laugh at herself before the waiter could ask what else was wrong.
They talked about food. She wanted things to share, several plates, enough variety for people to discover something they hadn't expected. She asked about a dish she had seen yesterday and got an answer she liked. The waiter suggested something else. She agreed, then stopped adding before the meal became an attempt to supply appetite on behalf of the people who wouldn't be there.
He asked whether she wanted flowers.
“No,” she said. Then, “Actually, yes. If there's something small.”
“Small,” he agreed.
She returned to the villa to change, although she was already dressed well enough. Theo wasn't there. The daybed was still untouched. She stood looking at it, then went into the bedroom and took off the portrait dress.
One extra night. He had bought it that morning while she ate eggs with Leah. She'd been so pleased to tell her sister about a night she could not offer as anything else, and now it had opened into Monday morning, sunlight and coffee and another day of going toward him when she knew where he was.
She picked up the red dress from Thursday, looked at it and put it away. She chose a loose blue one instead. Something she liked wearing for herself, or for a small dinner, or for a man who might ask again about Sunday.
When she came back to the restaurant, Bill and Patrick were already there. They'd found her table and looked delighted by the fact of small flowers. Bill said he hoped he wasn't expected to eat them.
“Only if the other food disappoints,” Mara said.
“I’ll wait for the other food, then. What did you order?”
She sat between them while the waiter brought drinks. Patrick wanted to know whether the large letters would be turned on tomorrow. Mara said yes. He said he had seen them delivered and admired the size of her commitment to spelling.
She laughed, and the evening shifted a little.
Across the terrace, Owen and Nina appeared together, arguing about whose day had been better. Theo wasn't there yet. Mara looked toward the entrance, then back at the little flowers and the drinks and the people who had come without needing to be persuaded to represent her holiday.
She pulled a chair out for Nina. Four was enough for the table. The sky above them was beginning to soften, and the first dish was on its way.