I focus instead on Anders. I have a special affection for Norwegians; they were always some of my favorite people on the tour. I ask how he ended up in Buenos Aires, and Anders explains that he had been traveling through South America, and on a stopover in Buenos Aires, he’d taken a class with Gianluca and gotten hooked. That was eight months ago, and he’d been here ever since, working at a local café to supplement his income. He’d been a software engineer back home in Norway, but he’d been traveling for a little over a year.

“That’s so cool. What made you decide to take off?” I ask.

There’s a heavy moment of silence, and Gemma, who’d been half paying attention, reaches to squeeze Anders’s knee. “Anders’s sister passed away,” she explains.

“I’m so sorry,” I say.

“Thank you,” Anders says stiffly. “She would have been twenty-seven next week. Two years older than me.”

Later as we’re leaving the hotel, I fall back with him.

“Anders?”

He looks down at me, seeming to try to relax a bit. I put my hand on his forearm.

“I just want to say that I’m so sorry about your sister.” He nods and looks at the ground. “I lost my sister too.”

“You did?”

I nod. And it’s true. Penny is lost to me. I’m taken aback when Anders sweeps me into a consuming hug. But then I let myself be hugged and it’s a relief; it’s not half the story but it feels good to tell someone something.

“Everything all right over here?” Gemma asks, her voice inscrutable.

“Everything is splendid,” Anders says. His English is good, if almost too sharp and sprinkled with the occasional anachronistic vocabulary word. “We’d better sober up before it’s time to dance!”

Later, we go to the social, and Gianluca has eyes only for Camilla.

“So what,” I say to Gemma. “She’s the shiny new thing?”

“Camilla? Oh no, she and Gianluca have some . . . history.”

“Ah. Who doesn’t he have history with?”

Gemma laughs. “She’s really something, isn’t she? To be honest, I think she finds me ridiculous. Edward doesn’t see it.”

“Why’s that?” I don’t want to say that actually, I think he does see it, and that I’m certain Camilla would feel the same about me if she thought about me at all, which I’m sure she hasn’t.

“I think she has feelings about foreigners coming here and insinuating themselves.”

“What about Edward?”

“He’s her family. And you know how that goes.” She sighs. “We’ll forgive our family almost anything.”

Penny Is the Best Mom in the World