and a polo shirt; he is clean-cut, darkly good-looking with a light spring tan and a body that shows he goes to the gym at least four times a week.
They look as though neither of them has ever had a problem in their lives. Young, fit, beautiful, what could possibly be wrong? Although, of course, Dr. Posner knows better.
Why else would they be here?
“Tell me why you fell in love,” Dr. Posner says, watching how the man shifts nervously. “Tell me what brought you together.”
Bee looks over at Daniel, and as he meets her eyes they both smile slightly, and Bee begins to talk.
“I was doing a house share in the Hamptons,” Bee says, her eyes misting a little at the memory. “It was this house that had looked wonderful in the pictures, but once we got there it had basically been trashed by the people before us—”
“It was a wonderful pool, though,” Daniel interjects, and Bee nods with a smile.
“It was.”
“So, you were both in the house together?” Dr. Posner asks.
“No.” Bee shakes her head. “Daniel was staying a couple of houses away, but it wasn’t a house share, he was with family friends.”
“I was horrified at the house shares.” Daniel grins properly, for the first time since walking in. “All these people drinking and partying, everyone single, all looking around frantically to see if someone better had just walked through the door.”
“And you weren’t?” Dr. Posner looks at Daniel.
“No. That scene has never been my thing. My parents had these friends who had a house in Amagansett and they were away for the summer and said we could use it.”
“They knew they could trust Daniel.” Bee laughs. “Anyone else would have trashed it in a day, but Daniel spent all day walking around with a vacuum in one hand and a broom in the other, scouring the floors for stray grains of sand.”
Daniel shrugs as he laughs, as if to say, she knows me so well.
“You’re fastidious?” Dr. Posner asks.
“He’s a clean freak,” Bee says. “He’s the only man I know who makes the bed every morning and does all the laundry.”
Dr. Posner smiles. “He sounds like the kind of man most women dream about.”
Neither of them says anything, and there is a pause.
“Do you mind him being a clean freak?” Dr. Posner asks eventually.
Bee laughs, but it’s forced. “Are you kidding? As you said, he’s amazing. All my friends are jealous because he does all the washing up, everything.”
“I can’t help it,” Daniel shrugs. “I get anxious if I’m surrounded by mess or dirt.”
“Let’s go back to the beach house,” Dr. Posner guides them. “Tell me how the two of you actually met.”
“He was playing volleyball on the beach with some of the guys from the house. They were all pretty awful. You would think that out of ten guys in a house share at least one of them would have been nice, but even the ones who looked cute were just ass-holes. My friend Deborah and I decided to have a glass of wine at the beach, and then we noticed Daniel and his friend because, obviously, they were strangers, but also they were cute.”
As she continues talking, both of them begin to relax, their bodies sinking into the sofa, their voices growing more animated as they smile, interrupt one another, remember what life was like when it was simple, when there was nothing to worry about. When they weren’t sitting at opposite ends of a leather sofa in a psychiatrist’s office because neither of them is sure their marriage is going to make it.
“Daniel, did you notice Bee?”
“It was difficult not to.” Daniel grins. “She was wearing a hot-pink bikini, and she kept smiling at me every time I looked at her.”
“So you were attracted to her?”
“I . . . yes. She was gorgeous. Of course.”
Had Daniel been attracted to Bee? Even now he doesn’t know the answer to this. She was gorgeous, it was true. He remembers all the other men trying desperately to get Bee to notice them, but Bee didn’t seem to have eyes for anyone other than Daniel.
He hadn’t understood it. He wasn’t looking for romance, had recently ended a four-year relationship with Nadine, whom he had loved, had been perfectly happy with, but she was the same age as him, thirty, and was desperate to marry him—or, at least, desperate to marry someone.
He loved her, but he hadn’t wanted to marry her, hadn’t wanted to make that sort of commitment,