Page 49 of The Villa

The next morning, Chess is waiting for me.

She’s wearing a bright red sundress over the striped bikini I’ve seen her wearing at the pool, and there’s a massive picnic basket on the kitchen table, a big gingham ribbon tied around the handle.

“What’s all this?” I ask her, and she comes forward, enveloping me in a hug.

“Pleaselet me take you on a fabulous adventure today and assuage my guilt for being such a ‘See You Next Tuesday’ last night.”

This is another classic Chess move, the Extravagant Apology.

Thing is, I’m always susceptible to it, desperate to get back to “normal.” Although part of me is starting to realize—maybe this is just who we are with each other, who we’ve always been. Maybe thisisour normal. We push each other, and, inevitably, we fight. Maybe I need to start remembering that.

“I like that you don’t use the C word anymore,” I tell her.

“It’s bad for the general image, but please know I use it in my head on the regular.”

I laugh again, then nod at the basket, which looks stuffed to the brim. “So, you’re taking me on a picnic?”

“It felt like the one big summer in Italy cliché we hadn’t checked off yet,” she says, and I can’t argue there.

It’s not long before we’re situated by the pond on a big blanket, Chess pulling out white plates with little strawberries on them, the sun shining down on us. We’re under one of the trees, so there’s a nice bit of shade, and I lean back on one elbow, looking out over the pond. The water is a dark, murky green, but it’s pretty to look at with its small dock, a decrepit rowboat tied to one post.

“In the spirit of honesty, this is yet another thing I didn’t actually make, just paid for,” Chess tells me as she starts unloading cured meats and wrapped cheeses onto the blanket, followed by two bottles of Orvieto wine.

After last night, I decide to pass on the wine, but I open a chilled bottle of mineral water and take a couple of pieces of bread.

For a long while, we just sit in silence, looking out over the water. It’s another perfect day in a perfect place, which makes it easy to forget last night’s ugliness. Soon we’re chatting like normal again, laughing and joking, back to being Em and Chess.

“How goesSwipe Right on Life?” I ask, and she tears off another hunk of bread, wrapping it around a little piece of mozzarella.

“It goes. It slowed down for a while there, but I’m finally feeling a little more inspired. It’s just that there’s onlyso many ways to say, ‘let go of your shit.’” She sighs, pushing her sunglasses on top of her head.

“Maybe that’s what you should call it instead,” I tell her. “‘Let Go of Your Shit.’ I’d buy that before ‘Swipe Right on Life.’”

She laughs, then gives me a sly look from the corner of her eye. “Speaking of ‘swiping right’…”

I look back out at the lake where something under the water sends up bubbles, ripples dimpling the glassy surface.

This is a conversation I’ve had before. With my friend Taylor, with my mom, hell, even with my hairstylist, but I don’t want to have it now.

“No.”

“Why such a hard no?”

I draw my legs up, wrapping my arms around my knees. “Once your husband has cheated on you while you were at your absolute lowest and then leaves you, it makes the idea of opening yourself up to any man, ever again, kind of lose its appeal.”

Chess is quiet, the only sound the twittering of birds and the wind through the trees for a few beats before she says, “You never really told me about all that. Matt cheating.”

“It’s not exactly my favorite subject,” I reply, but I wonder if it might feel good to actually talk about it.

“I never knew anything for sure,” I continue, my eyes still on the pond. “There wasn’t some big moment where I caught him in bed with someone, nothing that Lifetime movie. He just… started getting distant. And then his phone suddenly had a lock code on it, and… I don’t know. It’s like I could justsensesomeone else in the house, in our relationship, even when it was just the two of us.”

Those had been the worst days. Sick, my mind permanently fogged, certain there was another woman…

“Then I finally had theLove, Actuallymoment, and I knew,” I finish up, and Chess turns to face me, crossing her legs on the blanket.

“What doesthatmean?”

I laugh, even though the discovery was not remotely funny at the time. “Oh, you know. Found a piece of jewelry hidden away in his sock drawer. A bracelet. My birthday comes around, there’s a box, but it’s perfume, not a bracelet, and when I look again in his drawer, the bracelet is gone.”

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