“You know…” Anouk shifted in her seat. Her syrupy voice unfamiliar to most at the table. “Some of these ancestors forced their way into countries that were not their own and helped themselves to the natural resources, including, often, the people. Which is why not all of us can claim to have lived in the same village for five hundred years.”
She’d said it in French. And for some it took a full fifteen seconds to register. But ultimately, it landed.
“Hmm,” Maren uttered, fiddling with a signet ring on her finger.
Beatriz reached over for Anouk’s hand on the table and held it inside her own.
Elliot was the first to speak. “I like her.” He smiled.
Didier nodded, in agreement, his puppy-dog eyes twinkling. “Moi, aussi.”
Afterward, as they were weaving their way through the resort—the Querencia Bay party veering off to their respective luxury villas, and the others toward the vans heading back to Casa Azul—Cecilia spotted Bas a few yards ahead of her, walking alongside Anouk. They were engaged in an intense discussion. Or at least, Bas was, from what she could see. He was speaking and gesticulating earnestly, his face in profile, while Anouk did little more than incline her head from time to time. Cecilia could not hear any of their conversation, but not for want of trying.
“I think someone should tell Bas he’s barking up the wrong tree.” Marc had sauntered up beside Cecilia when she peeled off the main path toward the reception hall and valet. He had two unopened bottles of beer in hand. Cecilia knew he was saving them to drink later, on the narrow balcony of his hotel room, accompanied by his nightly blunt.
“What? Stop. You don’t know that. You don’t know anything about her.” She shushed him.
“I know she has bigger balls than any other nineteen-year-old I’ve met in this industry. Or maybe anywhere.” He paused then, tucking back a lock of hair that had fallen from his ponytail. “And I know how she looks at you.”
She froze for a second, wondering what it was that Marc had seen, detected. If the glances she’d written off as casual were decidedly not.
“You’re imagining it,” she said.
“Am I? It’s okay. I won’t tell your boyfriend.”
Cecilia was still figuring out how to respond when someone called her name from behind, and she spun around to find Bas striding up the palm-lined path. God, his legs were long.
“Just… go ahead. I’ll catch up with you in a sec,” she said to Marc. “But don’t leave me.”
He laughed, backing away from her, in the direction of the valet. “Surrounded by all this temptation? Never.”
“Shut up, Marc.”
“Don’t shit where you eat. I’ll be in the van.”
“I’m glad I caught you,” the boy from the five-hundred-year-old village announced breathlessly. Cecilia was once again aware of how tall he was, and how good he smelled this close. She wondered if it wasthe fragrance from his campaign. She could not recall the name, but the image was etched in her head. Him, topless, on a beach in Greece. His abs, oiled and glistening, in black and white. His eyes so light they were almost translucent.
“Hey, Bas.”
“I won’t keep you long. I just… I wanted to apologize for that entire conversation. I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, really. It was… careless and rude of me.”
“Really. It’s okay.”
“We’re still friends, then?” He smiled, wide. Manipulatively, Cecilia thought. He had to have known its effect.
“Yes.” She laughed. “We’re still friends.”
“Okay, good. Because it would kill me if we weren’t friends.” And with that, he bowed, and strode back between the palm trees from whence he came. “Get some sleep, Cecilia. See you tomorrow!”
XV.LADIES WHO LUNCH, A STUDY.
LOS ANGELES.
APRIL. 2015.
