“Excuse me?” Holly said, her voice raised, unwilling to close the distance between them any further. The girl should come to her, not the other way around.

The girl glanced up. She raised a hand in greeting.

Holly looked around again. What was going on? Who could explain? Through the window, Flora, who was watching, stopped squeegeeing. Was the girl one of her daughters? Holly hadn’t seen Flora’s daughters in a few years. She’d sent one of them an iPad for her quinceañera. Could she be this old now?

“Flora?” she called. The housekeeper backed down the ladder.

Holly looked back at the girl, who had sat up and was slipping her bare feet into ballet flats.

“Hi,” the girl called.

“Are you supposed to be here?” Holly asked.

“Umm,” the girl said, scrunching up her face.

“Señora?” Flora said, stepping out onto the terrace. She dried her hands on a towel.

“Flora, I don’t mind your family being here, but she should stay out of the way.”

Flora looked at the girl, confused. The girl looked backward, toward the cottages.

“Because of the party. It would be better if your—” but Holly didn’t know if this was her daughter or her niece or quite who she was to Flora, really, or possibly to Letty, maybe a sister? “—it would be better if she waited in the housekeeping cottage.”

“We’re not related,” the girl said now.

“My daughters are at school,” Flora said. “It’s Thursday,” she added, as if this would make everything clear.

Holly felt her cheeks flush with a heat she couldn’t douse, like trick candles on a birthday cake.

“My friend works here,” the girl said. “I’m waiting for her to finish a meeting and then I’m going. No one was out here, so I thought it would be okay. I’ll go wait inside.”

“I think that would be best,” Holly said, sounding like the headmistress of a home for wayward girls, not the perfect hostess she tried so hard to be. “The caterers will be setting up out here soon. You’ll be more comfortable in the administrative cottage. There’s a couch, and a kitchen. Help yourself!” She pointed at the book the girl was holding. “Is that good?”

The girl stood up. She regarded the book as if it were an octopus.

“Yeah, it’s all right. Anyway, sorry.” She headed for the path that led to the cottages.

“Okay,” Flora said, turning around and heading back inside.

Holly walked over to a table and sat under the umbrella, her cheeks still hot with embarrassment. How was she supposed to know who the girl did and did not belong to? And why was the staff inviting guests onto the property without Holly’s permission? This was her chair, her table, her terrace. She was entitled to sit here by herself, even if she rarely did.