I told her about my business. She said it sounded fascinating. She told me there was a soap opera based in Miami that she was thinking of trying out for. We went swimming. I blew bubbles out my nose, and it cracked her up. Breakfast ended at eleven, and neither of us did anything about it. Eventually I got up and bought us apples at the commissary.

Rick showed up around noon, all sweaty in a tennis outfit and a purple baseball hat with the name of the resort stitched across it. I’d actually missed having him around. Rick’s eyes were so green they almost glowed, from all that time in the sun. He was grinning again. Joanie asked if he was hungry; he said no. He had a white plastic bucket and a fishing rod; he went over near the dock and began surf casting.

Joanie was looking at me. I didn’t know what she meant. I said, “What are you smiling for?”

She said, “I’m such a fucking idiot.”

Diane came back. She was all excited. She sat in the sand and told us how she got the Windsurfer going—it was tricky—and how the instructor, Philippe, and she and two others went way out into the ocean. She said she’d never had so much fun in her life. The group had had to turn back because the weather was starting to change, but not before they spotted a giant sea turtle, swimming alongside them. She said, “It was huge and gray—it had slimy bumps on its back.” I looked off to the horizon, but I couldn’t see anything, just a few clouds in a long line above the water.

Diane jumped up to go say hello to Rick over by the dock. They started chatting, and soon she was holding the rod and Rick was leaning around her, showing her how to draw it back with his long, bronze muscles. Rick was tall and broad-shouldered, and Diane was looking up at him. You could hear them laugh. Joanie sat beside me, blinking into the hazy sun, her lips coated in a thick film of sunblock. After a few minutes I laid my head down, and when I looked up Diane and Rick were gone. I took my shirt off and fell asleep.

I woke up to the wind kicking sand, just the way Philippe had said. My mouth was dry. The sun was gone.