of this thought. “Do you remember winter? Isn’t it funny to think about winter here, where it’s always hot even when it rains?”
“Yes. You’ll remember this heat when we are in New York and the snow drifts are higher than a man’s head and we can’t get out the door.”
“Oh!—snowed in—whatever shall we do?”
“We’ll make a fire in the fireplace.”
“Yes, do go on.”
“And we’ll take out the blankets, and we’ll play bridge, and we’ll have cocoa and whiskey and we’ll dance—and if it’s only us, we will dance a little wildly, and nobody will ever know.”
“It will be our secret.” She faced him, the air between them absolutely buzzing with meaning, and let him hold both her hands, and kiss each—his lips lingering at her knuckles as though to make the most of this chaste gesture. “Thank you for a lovely evening, Mr. Farrar.”
“Yes, thank you, Miss Vida.”
Then she sank her eyelids, let go his hands, and slipped along the shelters to the hut she shared with Eleanor and Flora Flynn, moving in that rocking gait that was the custom of such moments. In such moments, it was understood that a man would stand still and watch, and that a lady would let her form and carriage be appreciated as long as possible. And though Vida’s heart was furious to look back, to meet his eye, to exchange the knowledge of what had grown between them, of their secret kiss and the way he had touched her, she was firm. She maintained control. She focused on what was before her and let him watch.
Seventeen
The air rustled with the dreams of others. Vida’s eyes opened wide. The moon was shining brightly through the thatched roof of the hut. How would it happen, she wondered—how would she and Fitz be pulled apart and come together again?
All great love stories have a series of thrilling and agonizing setbacks. Dame Edna had said this love story might be the greatest she had ever written. Vida wanted the story of her and Fitz to be grander than them all, to be legendary—but the specifics of those setbacks were hard to imagine.
If this was not precisely how she phrased things in her own churning thoughts, it was nonetheless the spirit of the uncertainty that troubled her sleep like a bad tooth. She lay in her slip on the bed of her dress and knew she would not be able to fall back asleep.
Then she heard the whistle. Soft, but distinct.
Flora and Eleanor were still sleeping, their bodies curled against each other in a feminine heap of salt- and mud-stained skirts.
Again she heard the whistle, so she rose from her place of slumber and went to see who it was.
To the west over the water the sky was still a deep, mysterious purple. Vida took one of the empty coconut shells that had been rigged to catch the dew and drank away her thirst. She pinched the skin of her cheeks with her fingertips to bring life to her face—an old instinct to try to look her best whenever she might encounter a member of the opposite sex. Her body was just about to complain that it was tired after all, when she heard the whistle a third time.
He was sitting a ways down the beach, gazing out at the sky. As she approached his head turned in her direction. There was something in the movement that told her he had been expecting her.
“I hope I didn’t wake you,” Sal said.
“No,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“Me neither.”
In a few moments, the girl she was supposed to be caught up to her, reminded her that she should be annoyed that a servant had disturbed her sleep, that he was speaking to her in such a familiar manner. And that Sal in particular was difficult, and that she should be stern with him. But the world was still dreamlike. Nothing was quite real. The darkness seemed to her delicious and alive.
“Were you trying to wake me?” she asked. Her voice sounded playful in the early-morning air. Had she meant to be playful? She was an expert at subtle flirtation, and didn’t usually flirt by accident.
He stood, brushed the sand from the back of his legs. If he’d heard her question, he did not acknowledge it. “Would you like to know the place to best watch the sunrise?”
“Do you mean to tell me that you’ve been withholding this information?” She was glad about the moonlight. It was bright enough for