When Jack arrived, he was wearing blue jeans and a gauzy shirt with rolled up sleeves, and espadrilles. Linda, who was just settling a straw boater on Simone’s head, turned gladly at the sound of his voice as he came into the salon. He kissed her on the cheek, and she put her arms around his neck. “I wish I could go, too. But I’ve got to get this damn thing done.”

“Are they ready?” He looked at Simone’s jumper and blouse. “She looks like she’s going to the dentist, not the beach.”

“Oh, Simone plans to read. I’m sure Anne will swim with you.”

Street in Venice, 1882
(Oil on wood, 45.1 × 53.9 cm)
BY John Singer Sargent
National Gallery of Art

It was a humid day, and Simone had triangles of sweat under her arms by the time we got to the dock. She wore the same thing day after day, usually a plaid skirt or a jumper, with a pastel blouse, and once, when I bought her a pink chiffon scarf like the one I’d bought myself, in imitation of Brigitte Bardot, she thanked me but folded it into her drawer. “She won’t let me buy her anything pretty,” Linda had told me. “She thinks the brace makes her ugly.”

As soon as we got on the boat, Simone went inside to sit on a bench, but I hadn’t been out on the lagoon before, so I stood at the rail, my chiffon scarf tied at the nape of my neck, my bangs fluttering in the breeze. Jack moved next to me. I noticed that other women on the boat were looking at him, and I couldn’t help feel a slight thrill. Maybe they thought he was my boyfriend. I’d never had a boyfriend, only two blind dates with inarticulate boys from the Jesuit High School across the street from my own girls’ school.

We watched Venice recede. “What’s that?” I asked. “All that green space.”

“The Giardini — the public gardens. If you come back next year you can go to the Biennale.” I must have looked blank because he added: “The art show.” I felt his arm brush mine, but the boat was bobbing up and down and it might have been an accident. I shifted around to face the crowd behind me. An American woman, standing beside a balding dark-haired man in ugly plaid shorts was watching me and I thought she looked jealous.

The boat docked, and we walked down a long avenue lined with shops selling suntan lotion and sun glasses. Jack stopped to buy some peanuts and candy bars at a kiosk, which he stuffed into my straw basket. He asked Simone if she was okay with the walk — the beach was just ahead, he said — and she nodded.

You couldn’t see the water. The sea was blocked off by walls and hedges. We walked along a shady street past some big hotels that looked like palaces to a pink building. Flying Beach, it said in English. We went through the gate, and Jack stopped at a window and paid. Then we passed through a café that opened onto the sand, and a boy in a striped shirt led us to an umbrella, and set up three chaise lounges. We left Simone on the one most securely in the shade, and Jack and I returned to the changing rooms.