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I am trembling a little when I say, "I want you to stop this thing with Bella."

He tells me I've got it all wrong, she needs to talk to him about her problems with Yves.

I say, "How about if she talks to Yves about her problems with Yves?"

He turns around and says, "She doesn't trust him."

"So why'd she marry him?"

"It's sad," he says, and we are not arguing anymore, we are talking about a couple less fortunate than ourselves, and I believe him and trust him, and I let my towel drop and pull him toward me. I kiss his neck, his chest, his mouth.

There's a knock, and Bella says, "We have a court in fifteen minutes."

"Okay," Jamie calls back. To me, he says, "Later."

—•—

We play tennis at a nearby hotel, and before anyone says anything, I insist on being Yves's partner. We are all strong players so it doesn't much matter who plays with whom, but I watch her face when I say it. She looks at me and I smile, Hiya.

I compliment Yves on his shots. He compliments me on mine. We have huddles. We have strategies. We have signs. Across the court, Bella begins to double-fault.

After tennis, we walk by the pool, and Bella kneels down as if to splash water on her face, but she splashes Jamie instead. He splashes her. It escalates until Jamie throws Bella into the pool.

The lifeguard blows his whistle.

Bella climbs up the ladder, her wet hair sticking to her head like a helmet. Of course you can see her breasts through her soaked white shirt.

"Now look what you did," she says to Jamie.

—•—

In the middle of the night, I wake up to Jamie's mouth on mine. I reach for the light, as is our custom, but he pulls my arm back around him.

—•—

Once Jamie is asleep, I go out to the living room. I light a cigarette and call my brother, who introduced me to Jamie.

Henry answers on the first ring and says, "Hey," as though he's been expecting my call.

I tell him about the house and the view, the mongeese. I am talking just to keep him on the phone, and he knows it. Finally, I tell him about Jamie throwing Bella in the pool.

Henry says, "I'm sure Jamie's totally oblivious."

"I don't think that's possible," I say.

"This is you," Henry says, softly but with authority.

We don't talk for a long moment.

"Well," I say, "I should get back to guarding the bedroom."

"Jamie would never do anything," Henry says.

I say, "I think he likes it, though."

"You can't really blame him for that," Henry says. He tells me that the best man I will ever find will be attracted to other women.

I hear this as another fact I am too old not to know. More proof of how unprepared I am to love anyone.

—•—

Clearing the breakfast dishes, Bella leans into Jamie.

In our bedroom, I say, "I think I would be more comfortable if Bella weren't always touching you."

"It's a European thing," he says.

"A European thing," I say.

—•—

In the late afternoon, I tell Yves I'd like to buy perfume for a friend. He drives me to town, but the store is closed.

Instead, we go to the bar with the tables on the dock. I try to ask him questions, but I see this is not how to talk to Yves.

"You are so young," he says, "even for your age." His tone is charmed and only half avuncular as he describes me to me.

I start telling the story I always tell, about my loving family and the principles I grew up with, but I surprise myself, and I say, "I was afraid of sex before Jamie."

I'm about to tell him more, but he touches my wrist, making a soft spiral.

I want him to, and what makes me pull my wrist back is not fear of sex or love for Jamie but the restraint self-righteousness requires.

—•—

After dinner, I volunteer to do the dishes. Yves clears. He sits on a stool, watching me scrape the plates into the garbage. I can feel his eyes on me.

"Could you not stare at me, please?" I say.

I hear Bella's voice: "Where are the cards?" she says. "We'll play some poker."

Yves sets up the bar on the veranda. Bella counts out our make-do poker chips, olives and sword-shaped plastic toothpicks.

I tell Yves that my grandparents taught