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“Well, look. There they are. Isn’t it pretty?”
She turned toward the clubhouse, which perched near the beach, lights all ablaze in preparation for sunset. The weathered gray shingles camouflaged it perfectly against the sand. Behind the rooftop, the sun was dipping down into the golden west.
“It’s beautiful. We’re so lucky to live here every summer, aren’t we?”
“Very lucky.” The voices carried across the beach, too far away to distinguish. I was unbearably conscious of my own cowardice. If Kiki knew, if she understood, she would be ashamed of me. Kiki never turned away from a challenge.
I took her hand. “Let’s go back.”
By the time we reached the veranda again, I had planned everything out. I would secure a table on this end, the far end, sheltered, tucked around the corner from view. I would send Kiki to find Mother and Aunt Julie, while I let the club manager know where we were eating tonight. The surf, I’d say, was too fierce for Mother.
After our meal, we’d pass through the rest of the veranda, greeting acquaintances, and when we reached her table I’d be composed, settled into the routine of shaking hands and expressing admiration for new hairstyles and new dresses, of lamenting the loss of elderly members during the past year, of celebrating the arrival of new grandchildren: the same conversation, the same pattern, evening after evening and summer after summer. I knew my lines by heart. A minute, perhaps two, and we’d be gone.
Kiki skipped up the steps ahead of me, and I leaned down to pick up my empty glass. My hair spilled away from Aunt Julie’s pristine chignon, loosened by the sea air and its own waywardness. I pushed it back over my ear. My cheeks tingled from the spraying surf and the brisk walk. Should I visit the powder room, return myself to orderliness, or was it too great a risk?
“Why, hello,” said Kiki, from the top of the stairs. “I haven’t seen you around before.”
I froze, bent over, my hand clutched around the smooth, round highball glass as if it were a life buoy.
An appalling silence stretched the seconds apart.
“Well, hello, yourself,” said a man’s voice, gently.
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