“Stop, just, just please stop,” said Olivia, her hands over her ears, her face crumpling. A sickening moment crept by, like traffic passing an accident.

“I’m sorry, Mama,” said Lara faintly.

Hull stood and dumped the dishes in the sink. “Come help me dry, kid.”

Alex sat on the bed beside Mac and scratched his naked back until his eyes fluttered. She had set a mug of hot coffee on the bedside table. He groaned, smelling it.

“Are you ever going to wake up?” she asked him.

“I am up,” he said, shifting. “I’m good and up.”

“It’s three o’clock.”

“I had a bad night.”

“Really? You looked like you were sleeping.”

“No, that was you. I was up at two and couldn’t go back to sleep. I went downstairs and drew till six.”

She looked at his hands, the charcoal under his nails. “Where downstairs?”

“The living room, I think it was. Very large couches. Would you like to check the CCTV?” he asked as he slowly moved the cup to his lips.

“Very funny,” said Alex, irritated about the smudge on the couch.

Mac focused on her then, blinking away the sleep. He took in her tawny skin and strong limbs, her dark, thick, shoulder-length hair.

“Wouldn’t you be more comfortable nude?” he asked.

After they had made love, they lay under the large white ceiling fan, watching it churn the air slowly.

“So what’s on the agenda today?” Mac asked.

“Nothing really,” said Alex. “Tennis if you want, and/or the beach. You missed breakfast. And lunch.”

“Beach, please.”

“And then my parents are having a barbecue for people who aren’t invited to the wedding. And some who are.”

“How is it possible your parents know so many people, my love? I only know six—and we’re two of them.”

Lara’s ankle-length peach silk dress, a hand-me-down from her mother, floated around her, caressing her bare legs, her belly, as she wandered through the crowded party. Her braless breasts strained the smocking to such an extent that Olivia had nearly told her not to wear it—but that, she decided, would have been cruel. Instead, she lent the girl a silk shawl to go with it, draping it helpfully over her chest.

At dusk, Lara drifted across the Palacios’ lawn, taking in the twinkling fairy lights twisted around wire bowers arching over the patio, the faraway beacons of boats out on the ocean, the detonations, so familiar to her, of waves crashing against the shore.