Marissa waved at Bette and Tina when she spied them descend the rest of the meandering wooden staircase perched delicately over Logan’s beautifully landscape gardens that sloped from the broad lawn on the eastern side of the beach-side mansion down to the private sandy beach, gentle degree by gentle degree. Fifteen minutes earlier, she’d noticed the couple was slowly walking down the staircase, hand-in-hand, but then they’d paused by a bench perched on a curve of the staircase, that looked out to the ocean. After what looked like a brief, but consequential exchange, she’d seen the couple embrace tightly, and then had sat down on the bench, seemingly engrossed in serious conversation.

She’d smiled wistfully at the sight, then had looked away to resume listening in on the conversation Lauren was leading, as she thought, “Bette and Tina. So connected. And so much love between them.” Then she laughed lightly to herself, thinking again about how she, Jules, and Sarah had been teasing Tina earlier, “And so hot! Hmm… I wonder what Bette thinks about their first time.”

One of the group of artists and gallerists had been explaining to Marissa that they’d made a final visit to the Whitney Biennial earlier that day, as it was closing after the Memorial Day weekend. His eyebrows lifted up, questioning as Marissa’s sudden quiet chuckle interrupted him in the middle of his story about how difficult it had been to “herd everyone into the SUV Lauren had left for us.” She gave him a quick smile in response to his silent question, and commented, “Yeah, the Biennial was pretty good this year. I really loved that “camera obscura” installation.”

She asked, “I think the artist was given an award by the organizers, right?” to indicate to him that she’d been listening to him even though she’d briefly looked away.

Meanwhile, Logan had also waved at Bette and Tina, when he’d also seen them walk down the staircase slow. They’d returned his wave but had indicated with hand signals that they were heading towards Marissa. Logan nodded and motioned back that he would walk with them.

Without breaking stride, they simultaneously redirected their path to take a more direct route to where Marissa and her group were standing, which was about 20 feet away from the bonfire, closer to the edge of where the waves lapped onto the shore.