“It would be lovely of you,” I said.

“All right.”

The swimmer reappeared. He worked his way back, vanishing and reappearing, looping through the swells. Slowly his form grew larger, and he emerged from the water. His chest glistened in the sun. I sat close to the tide line, not far from where he’d dropped his shirt before wading in.

“You’re new?” he asked.

I had my sunglasses on and my hair in a bandanna. I wore a yellow two-piece, with the white shirt draped over my shoulders. I was glad of the shirt because it hid my long arms, my gangliness. All this time, Gasparo and Zanche watched from the deck. No doubt they’d have preferred I mind my own business—that I talk to no one—but the swimmer looked at me without a trace of recognition. I was just a woman in a bathing suit, sitting on the sand, her long legs splayed clumsily in front of her.

Lodovico back in Rome seemed a distant threat.

“We’re vacationing,” I said.

“For how long?”

“Just a little while.”

Our house was not the only one on this stretch leased out during high season to wealthy tourists from abroad. Though I’d only lived there a few years, I liked to think I’d been in Italy long enough that I spoke English with an Italian accent. I could tell the swimmer anything, I supposed. I didn’t have my wedding ring on. I hadn’t worn it since arriving in Malibu—since I didn’t want to lose it in the sand. The man didn’t wear one, either.

“I’ve seen you walking,” he said. “With the boy.”

“My nephew.”

“That explains the resemblance. You are built alike.”

There was no blood relation between me and Dazio, but I didn’t bother to explain. He glanced up toward Gasparo and Zanche on the deck as if wondering about their connection to me.

“This Friday, some friends and I are having a get-together.” He gestured at his house. “The one with the fire circle, out on the point.”

“I notice that you build a fire most every night.”

“Most nights, it’s just me.”

He was nice-looking, almost too nice, and his eyes held a pleasant vacancy. He looked back toward our house. I followed his gaze and saw Zanche, with her beautiful black skin and her bright suit, coming toward us through the sand. She’d been carrying herself more loosely these last days, especially around Gasparo, but when the stranger tried his smile on her, she went cold.

“You’re needed back at the house,” she said to me.

“No, I’m not.”

“You are.”

The swimmer understood her drift.

“I’d better go,” he said.