“Here,” I said, and tossed her my baseball hat.

“Thanks,” she said, and pulled it down and swung her ponytail out the back. I looked at Diane—her mouth was hanging open in surprise. Did she want my hat for herself? I guess so.

She slid down to wipe the sand off her feet, and I knelt beside her and kissed her. I took her hand and held it. I ducked down and kissed her neck. She giggled and said to Joanie, “Maybe I should get my ears pierced.” Joanie was staring down the beach looking for her husband. She was already very tan and had a swimmer’s body—taut, trim, and lanky; she had beautiful bosoms, and her hipbones jutted up so nicely you could’ve hung Christmas ornaments on them. I kissed Diane’s throat and held her thin braids in my hand. She jerked her head away. “My hair’s filthy,” she said. Joanie looked down the blanket at us, over the delicate arch of her pelvis, and smiled.

THE FOUR OF us sat together at dinner that night and drank wine. I ate this fish stew in a flaky pie crust, and after dinner the staff built a bonfire on the beach and we took another bottle of wine and went down there.

They’d dragged big logs over for us to sit on, and I sat down next to the guy stoking the fire. It was chilly out. The fire was heating up one side of my face, making it swell, and the sea breeze hit me on the other side and it felt numb. The local guys were talking to each other a mile a minute—it was totally unintelligible—and across the circle I saw Diane chatting with a couple we’d met on the airport van.

Our vacation was half over. On the whole, things were better. Was that what Diane thought, too? Or had she stopped loving me, and couldn’t say so? I kept wondering if this was the end. I was sitting in a jolly crowd of people. I sipped my wine. Rick was standing over on the side, talking with the woman from the boat; he opened her beer for her with a thing on his key chain and took a swig. The girl laughed. Joanie was two feet away from them. She still had that dopey smile plastered on her face. She sat Indian style on the sand, looking tan and tired, watching the fire.