I poured myself coffee, made toast, and took it all out to the deck, where I sat in the morning sunlight and gazed at the hills. It was going to be a hot day; I could feel the promise of it in the way the sun sank into my hair. In the distance, I heard the gate opening and closing. The metal latch dropping into place.

I couldn’t see Steph from here, but there was something delicious about knowing that she was coming up the hill, and if I went around the house to look for her, I could see her. From my vantage point, it seemed as if I was alone, but I wasn’t. Steph was close enough that if I called her name, she would probably hear me.

I sat on the deck for a while, listening. The gardening tools were kept in a shed just below the studio, and I heard the bolt on the shed door thrown open and then the low creak of the hinges. I heard the clanging of tools and the rumble of the wheelbarrow as it was pushed out into the yard. Thump, thump, clang. The door creaking again, closing. Footsteps and the wheelbarrow, trundling away.

Another few minutes passed, and then I went back into the kitchen. Joan always had a pitcher of iced tea in the fridge, and there was a bowl of lemons on the counter. It was getting hot already, and Steph would probably be thirsty. I took out the lemon squeezer and some glasses and set them on the counter along with the iced tea, long spoons, and a tray of ice from the freezer. I didn’t let myself think about what I was doing; I just did it.

—

Analemma ran ahead of me out the front door, and I followed more slowly with the two glasses of iced tea. The hill that the cottage was built into was terraced, and the brick path wound back and forth down the hill like a Z. I heard Steph greeting Ana before I saw her, and when I rounded the bend and Steph came into view, she looked exactly as I expected—baseball cap, shorts, sleeveless tee—but it still startled me: my imagination made real.

She looked up as she rubbed Analemma’s back and smiled. “Hey.”

“I thought you might want some iced tea,” I said, and offered her a glass.

She was wearing work gloves, and she took one off to accept it. Our fingertips brushed together. “Thanks.” She took a sip and then set the glass down on the stone bench nearby.

“Joan gave me this to give to you, too.” I took the check out of my pocket and held it out to her.

“Great.” She took it without touching me, and I was a little disappointed.

“She also asked me to invite you over for lunch sometime.”