Page 55 of The Villa

Or, I make myself consider as we walk farther down the street, maybe I was imagining all of this, assuming the worst about Chess. Maybe she is just genuinely happy I’m writing again, that I’ll be able to deliver the book that’s due and get the payment that Idefinitelyneed.

How is it that someone can bring out the very best and the very worst of you all at once?

Pushing that thought away, I pull out my phone to check the time. Instead, I see I have missed calls.

Four of them.

All from Matt.

I frown, and Chess moves closer to me. “What is it?”

“Matt,” I tell her, and she snorts.

“What does he want?”

I shake my head, checking my texts to see two from him.

Hi. Know you’re busy, but really needed to talk to you about something.

Give me a call when you can.

More paperwork, probably. Some new wrinkle in the divorce proceedings, some extra money his lawyers have figured out how to squeeze out of me.

I know I have to call him back, but not now. Nothere. I don’t like the idea of him here, invading this place that’s just mine.

Well, mine and Chess’s.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” I tell her now, and I put the phone back, resolved to put Matt out of my mind for the rest of the afternoon.

Chess watches me for a beat, and then folds her arms over her chest.

“Em, this is an Ostrich Moment.”

I stare at her, wondering if I’ve suddenly had a stroke, but she’s just watching me expectantly and suddenly I realize this has to be something from one of her books, something I’ve missed, apparently.

“An Ostrich Moment,” I repeat, and yes, I can practically hear the trademark appearing next to it now.

Chess steps forward, taking my hands in hers, rooting us to the spot even as other tourists are forced to walk around us.

“You want to stick your head in the sand, and make this all go away. But the thing is, it’s not going to. The sand doesn’tfixthe problem, it justhidesit.”

I know there are women who would pay thousands to get their own personal Chess Chandler Therapy Session, but right now, I really wish I were getting Chess my friend, not Chess the Guru.

Even though I know she’s probably right.

“So, you’re saying I should call Matt.”

She squeezes my hands. “Get it over with. We’ll head back to the house, and you’ll call him. Find out what he wants, and I promise you, whatever it is, it won’t be that bad. It’ll take, like, fifteen minutes max, and then, instead of agonizing over what hemightwant, you’ll know. And then you’ll come into the kitchen and meet me, and you’ll have a cocktail roughly the size of your head, and everything will be fine.”

The thing with Chess is, when she says something, you believe it.

Which is why I find myself in my bedroom at the villa half an hour later, dialing Matt’s number.

He answers after the first ring. “There you are. I sent those texts hours ago.”

I can feel my blood pressure rising, but I close my eyes and focus on my breathing just like Chess had suggested. “I’m on vacation, Matt,” I say evenly. “I called as soon as I could.”

“Fine,” he replies, and I picture him there at his desk at work, his white polo shirt bright against his tanned skin, the nervous way he’s probably rubbing his free hand over the top of his head.

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