By the time Theo sat down to eat, Owen had a patch of sauce on the shirt he'd actually ironed, his mother had removed one gold shoe beneath her chair, and Kit was explaining to Freya why an empty plate did not constitute a failed first attempt.
“It was an inspection,” Kit said.
“You inspected a great deal.”
“Thoroughly.”
Theo took the seat beside Mara. They had kept no special table at the front, just two places among the people they wanted to see eating what they'd chosen. Leah sat on Mara's other side; Daniel was across from her, turning his plate so that something in the sauce wouldn't reach his sleeve.
“Look at this,” Mara said quietly.
She meant the whole terrace. Theo looked.
The lights above them were brighter now than the sky. Food came from a long table at the side and on plates carried to people who hadn't realized there was something else to try. Guests leaned across unfamiliar neighbors to pass bread. A colleague of Mara's was explaining the market to Janette, whose attention divided between the account and the tray approaching her from behind. Bill sat with Patrick, both eating with the private concentration of men who expected somebody to suggest moving soon.
The band played at a level which left room for conversation, though every so often the saxophone took a view of its own. The musician stayed on the ground this time. Theo was pleased to see him earning the chair.
He ate, then went back for more of something he couldn't name without asking. Mara had tried it at their tasting and spent three days talking about it afterward. He remembered her at the kitchen table in Bristol, pretending to be reasonable while making another request which would add to the bill. He had kissed her instead of objecting, then made a request of his own.
Now he brought back enough for her too. She stole a piece before he could offer it.
“You were about to share,” she said.
“I was going to consider the application.”
“I've saved time.”
They ate from his plate while Freya described a bar she'd liked yesterday. Kit corrected a detail and she corrected him back, neither willing to concede the existence of two different memories. Daniel wanted its name. Leah took out her phone to record it, and Mara offered no objection to a next evening she would not arrange.
Across the table Owen dabbed his shirt with a napkin, spreading the stain.
“Stop,” Nina said.
“Hang on. I think—”
“You're spreading it.”
He looked down. “You're right.”
Mara leaned across to inspect it. “You've acquired a flower.”
“It's asymmetrical.”
“More expensive that way.”
Owen considered the stain, then stopped trying to improve it. He raised his glass to the design. The table toasted with him, and Nina took a photograph before he could object.
People moved after the food. Somebody wanted a photograph with three cousins who had not been in the same place for years; one of them kept looking toward the wrong camera while Robin tried patiently to hold all four faces in the same present. Guests returned from the bar with drinks for people they'd lost on the way. The first dancers were Freya and a woman Theo knew only from Mara's work stories, both willing to begin before anyone could make dancing an assignment.
Kit followed, then came back to collect Theo.
“You're required.”
“By whom?”
“General demand.”
“Looks like your demand.”
“Nina wants a partner, Owen’s hiding, and you’ve finished eating. Come on.”
Theo got up. Mara watched him go and made a face which promised she would enjoy his performance from a distance. He pointed at her, then let Kit pull him into a small group whose confidence far exceeded its coordination.
For the first minute Theo concentrated on doing as little as possible with his arms. Then the music caught him properly, and he forgot to inspect himself. Kit made an extravagant turn, missed the beat and compensated by adding another. Freya laughed, joined him for a few bars and left him to finish the disaster alone.
Theo danced with Nina. She said his knees seemed concerned about the whole arrangement. He said they were asking sensible questions. She showed him how to move them more confidently, which resulted in Owen accusing her of giving lessons away after making him pay for a walk.
Mara stood at the edge of the group with Leah. She had put down her drink. Theo held out a hand. She shook her head, smiling.
He kept it there.
“Subtle,” she said when she came to him.
“I learned from the letters.”
They danced without trying the tiny lift. She moved easily beside him, her yellow dress catching the light as she turned. He looked at her and forgot the next beat. She laughed, pulled him back into it and then deliberately missed one herself, making the whole thing theirs again.
Daniel came past with Leah, who had more energy than her sister now that nobody required her to supervise the evening. She lifted an arm, turned beneath her husband's hand and nearly hit Kit in the face. Kit ducked with a theatrical care which made the near miss seem planned.
Theo saw his mother still at the table, watching them. Bill had gone to speak to Patrick by the bar. Sue's shoeless foot stretched beneath the cloth. She looked tired, beautiful and too far away for him to offer a hand without making a walk across the terrace an event.
Mara followed his glance. She said nothing. Theo kept dancing with her until the song ended, then kissed her hand without thinking and went to his mother.
“How are the shoes?” he asked.
“Excellent to look at.”
“Would you like to dance in them?”
“No.”
He nodded. She watched him begin to turn away.
“I could dance without them.”
He smiled and held out his hand. Sue took the second shoe off and put both beneath the table, neatly, as though this were a condition under which she had expected to leave them all along.
On the dance floor she became lighter. He had danced with her at weddings before, usually under protest while she insisted the song would be over before his embarrassment became fatal. Now she told him he was holding her arm too tightly. He loosened his hand.
“I'm not going to fly away,” she said.
“A precaution.”
She laughed. Janette joined them, and his mother took her hand for part of the song, leaving Theo to discover whether his knees had retained Nina's advice. They had not.
Sue looked happy for whole minutes at a time. When she grew warm, he brought her the little fan from her bag, and she pointed it at him first, laughing as it blew a lock of his hair into his eyes.
The band finished its set. People applauded with the delight of having wanted more. The singer came to speak to Mara and Theo while they stood at the edge, catching their breath.
“We've got your song,” she said.
Mara looked at Theo. He looked back with the feeling of being caught in a promise he'd made in a different life and still wanted desperately to keep.
“The terrible one?” he asked.
“The suitcase.”
“That's the one.”
“Do you want to help?”
She nodded toward the microphones. Mara laughed. Theo saw the idea arrive in her face, then become exactly as unreasonable as it needed to be.
“We shouldn't,” she said.
“Clearly,” he agreed.
“We've had no rehearsal.”
“Six years.”
“Not professional rehearsal.”
The singer smiled. “I can bring you in. You'll know it.”
She went back to the band. Mara watched her, then turned to Theo.
“We might never be allowed in here again.”
“We're leaving tomorrow.”
Her smile held, though he saw the small change beneath it. Then she took his hand and pulled him toward the microphones before either could decide to be sensible.
Kit saw them going and began to clap too soon. Freya put her head in her hands. Owen pushed his chair back with delight. Robin came nearer, camera lifted, while a few guests continued to eat, unaware that the evening had been placed in danger by its hosts.
Theo took the second microphone. Mara tested hers with a quiet hello which emerged very much louder than she intended. She laughed into it, causing several people to laugh back before she had said anything worth hearing.
“We've made an artistic decision,” she announced.
“Against advice,” Theo added.
Freya lifted her hands from her face. “Mine!”
Mara pointed toward her. “A dissenting member of the academy.”
The band began. The awful opening was instantly recognizable to Theo: bright, overconfident, a tune which seemed to have packed for a different song. Mara turned toward him and assumed the expression she had used every time they sang it badly in the kitchen, passionate and slightly offended by the world.
He entered too early.
The singer lifted a hand. Theo stopped mid-word. Mara shook with laughter, then straightened and came in at the correct moment as though she were rescuing an international broadcast.
“Put your shoes beside my shoes,” she sang.
Theo answered with complete seriousness.
“We'll lose them all before we land.”
His voice was not good. It was, however, loud and unafraid. Mara put her hand over her heart, lifting her chin for a note she did not reach. The singer joined them just enough to keep the tune from falling apart, and the band supplied the enormous confidence the words required.
They faced each other for the refrain.
“Two hearts—”
“One suitcase—”
Then together, with more enthusiasm than harmony:
“No room left for anybody's socks.”
Owen made a sound halfway between cheering and choking. Freya was laughing openly now. Bill had come back from the bar and stood beside Sue, looking as if he could claim no responsibility for his son's musical inheritance.
Mara took a step closer to Theo, one hand extended, and he held it while the next lines went somewhere foolish about luggage and devotion. He had forgotten part of the verse. She had not. She supplied his words with a fierce look, and he took them like an understudy who had suddenly been required to save the show.
The saxophonist rose onto the chair for the instrumental passage.
People cheered. Mara turned to him with the delighted surprise of someone whose absurd purchase had finally fulfilled every promise. Theo applauded too, microphone still in hand, making a dull noise through the speakers which the drummer answered with a flourish.
By the final refrain, half the guests had learned the suitcase part. They sang it back with varying levels of disgust and commitment. Daniel stood beside Leah, both laughing, his hand lifted as if to insist the suitcase could not reasonably carry what the song claimed. Nina had her phone out for a moment, then put it away because Owen was asking her to dance.
Theo looked at Mara across their joined hands. Her eyes shone. She was singing to him with a ridiculous conviction he knew she could summon for even the worst private joke, and he had no defense against how much he wanted to remain the person it was aimed at.
They finished on different notes. The band chose a third and made it sound intentional.
The terrace applauded. Mara bowed too deeply and nearly lost her microphone. Theo caught her arm, bowed with less ambition and handed his microphone back before anyone could ask for an encore.
The drummer began another song immediately. This one was good. People came forward to dance, and the floor filled quickly, as though the terrible performance had removed the last reason to worry about what anyone else might see.
Theo stood beside Mara, both breathing hard from a performance which had involved almost no exercise.
“Career,” she said.
“Unlikely.”
“But memorable.”
“For several witnesses.”
She laughed and leaned her forehead against his shoulder. He held her waist for a moment, then Kit arrived to congratulate them with a solemnity which lasted until he attempted the final note himself.
The cake appeared later, while dancing was still underway. It stood on its table with the flowers along one side intact. Mara came to look at it with Theo. Elena offered a knife and plates without making the cutting a ceremony. Mara took the knife, held her plate in the other hand and discovered the first slice was harder to remove gracefully than she'd expected.
“Structural integrity,” Theo said.
“I'm having the good part this time.”
She cut again. A piece came free, crooked and generous. Cream landed on her wrist. She licked it off before putting the plate down.
Owen watched with interest.
“Are we allowed?”
“Yes,” Mara said. “There's an appalling amount.”
Elena took over the cutting, more neatly. Plates went out across the terrace. People who claimed they never ate cake accepted a small piece, returned to ask which part contained more cream and abandoned the claim. Theo stood with his own portion and watched Mara take the first mouthful. She closed her eyes again, just as she had that morning.
He liked the cake. He liked seeing her like it more.
Patrick declared it would be irresponsible to travel without eating a second slice. Bill agreed. Sue told both of them to stop pretending there was a principle involved and asked for a second slice herself.
Theo had to sit down because he was laughing and holding a plate, and the combination no longer seemed safe.
The evening loosened further. Jackets were abandoned on chair backs. Somebody found a missing earring beneath the table and held it up in triumph, only to discover its owner had never noticed it gone. Kit attempted to dance with three people at once and succeeded only because none expected to remain partners. Nina pulled Owen into the group with his stained shirt, and he moved more confidently than he had all week, free at last of any obligation to preserve himself for a photograph.
Mara danced with Leah. The sisters had a way of laughing which grew more alike the longer Theo watched them. Daniel stood beside him, holding Leah's shoes and two drinks, waiting for a moment when any of those items might become useful.
“You can put them down,” Theo said.
“I know.”
“There's a table.”
“I've made a commitment.”
They watched the women turn together. Leah nearly lost her balance, caught Mara's arm and laughed harder. Daniel smiled at his wife in a way which made Theo look away for a moment, not jealous exactly, but aware of the life their next day belonged to.
When the song ended, Leah came to Daniel and kissed him. She took one drink, left him holding the shoes and said something too quiet for Theo to hear. Daniel nodded. They went toward the far steps together, her hand tucked around his elbow.
Mara came to stand beside Theo.
“They've escaped,” she said.
“A teaspoons emergency.”
“Clearly.”
They smiled. Then Freya arrived, asking whether either of them had seen her bag. They helped find it beneath Sue's table, where she had left it while dancing with Janette. Sue said Janette could not be held responsible for possessions after the second glass. Freya accepted the warning and took the bag to the bar.
The party continued without needing Mara and Theo at its center. For a little while he let himself stand at the edge and watch. Robin moved quietly among the dancers, then stopped to eat cake himself. Staff collected plates, brought water, laughed at something Kit had said while trying to explain why he needed a napkin and a spoon but no more food.
The lights above them stirred in the breeze. Mara's bare shoulder touched Theo's arm. Her dress smelled faintly of perfume, warm skin and the excellent food they’d saved for through eighteen months of planning, to give away in one evening.
“This is so good,” she said.
He nodded. “It is.”
She looked toward the glowing letters. Bill had abandoned the O in favor of dancing with Sue, whose shoes remained under the table. She was laughing at something he had done with his hands. Theo couldn't hear what it was. He didn't need to.
Mara held out her hand again. He took it.
They went back into the music while the party still had plenty to ask of them.