About this story
Her instructions arrive with the flowers: entertain her admirer, forward nothing to Paris. A telegram then orders you to mail one letter and burn a second, unread, and you and Nick are still deciding how far hospitality's debts extend when Ellie herself arrives to ask if you obeyed.
How it opens
Moonlight turned Lake Como to silver below a villa borrowed for your honeymoon.
Susy, this terrace could make poverty look like a private aesthetic choice.
You raised a glass supplied by friends who considered generosity a form of influence.
Villa ServantSignora Vanderlyn left instructions that nothing be spared during your stay.
We have married into every luxury except the inconvenient fact of possession.
Choose
To one perfect year financed by other people's empty houses.
To us, even after the invitations stop arriving.