He lay in a small room on a bed of fresh straw surrounded by shelves full of art and books and glass sculptures in greens and purples. Beside him was a towel and water to drink. He took these as evidence of Viviana’s care. Reflecting on the night before, he was satisfied to find only flecks of embarrassment. Many of his most foolish words had been swallowed by the rain. Shaking himself from the straw, he went to wander for coffee.

He called polite hellos, but received nothing in reply.

The pool room they’d passed by the night before marked one end of the house. The long rectangle of water was a motionless silver turquoise. Sunlight streamed through high windows. The snorkel masks, flippers, and towels were in a configuration different from how he remembered them, and they were wet. They’d been used since the night before.

The dark wood hall was lined with closed doors. Alfonzo strained to catch chatter or any sounds of life. The household hung suspended in a silence that only he disrupted with hungover grumbles.

He poked his neck around a corner and found a giant, bright enclosure. Actually, the word giant was inadequate. Alfonzo had been inside many large spaces. He’d wandered the Met Museum and the central public library. He knew the feeling of vastness. But this was the largest room within a private home he’d ever seen. He wondered if such a place could in fact be a home. Beams and columns divided the space into smaller, but still huge, microclimates. Luxuriant vines hung down from the ceiling. Wood and stone carvings stood sentinel. There were also tree trunks and metal posts repurposed as art. The very distant supporting walls were made of stacks of carved boulders. The roof, far overhead, was made of woven logs and sticks, referencing beaver dams or badger-den design. Colors, carpets, furniture, and hanging lamps communicated obscure moods and purposes for each zone. Potted palms ringed a blue circle painted on the floor. Heaps of moss cushions surrounded a fireplace large enough for an ox to stand inside. A red Mamluk mongoose carpet delineated the record player’s territory. Far in the distance a glass wall fitted with small doors separated inside from out. Beyond it were dunes, and beyond the dunes the sea. Now Alfonzo understood the kind of umbrella Viviana was sheltering beneath. Cappuccino Guggenheim was this kind of rich. This kind of rich had always been an abstraction to him. But here it was, and here he was inside it, a teetering interloper.