.8

She had very clearly staged the whole affair. Gold and pink reflecting back up from the red-tile floor and her sunburnt skin. No one left their passport open on the bed and left everything else in the drawers and closets. She’d fully unpacked. She had been there over two weeks. The door was open. Inviting. And there was the musk and the gardenias and the brushed teeth and the shoes and the underwear, and, of course, the towel.

It was orchestrated. Down to the porter cringing in the corner and the full moon over the lake.

He was practically proud of her. It took enterprise and no shortage of guts and more than a little faith in fate. She’d practically thrown herself headlong into it. She planned it—ritualized her decision into a pattern, making her moves and her plays into intricate weavings and circlings—searching her mate and looking for a singular response. Dropping her crumbs.