Beatrice was late. Russell was sitting on the dock looking at the blurring horizon when he finally saw a small boat, a Boston whaler, coming towards the hotel. She was alone behind the wheel, in a two-piece suit with an orange sarong. Her hair was wet and the color of honey.

She pulled up to the dock and cut the engine. She moved up to the bow and threw him a rope. He grabbed it and looked at her.

“You have to tie it off. I thought we’d have a drink. I’ve been for a swim,” she said. He did as she asked him, although he wasn’t too good at knots. She looked at it as he helped her up from the boat.

“You weren’t in the Navy,” she said, joking.

“No,” he said.

“We can’t show any affection here,” she said. “So pretend I just kissed you.”

“All right,” he said. She looked at him, then knelt down and re-tied the boat off. He realized he’d been monosyllabic since they’d spoken on the phone. He had been even in the hotel, when they’d been alone.

“I’m sorry. I just—well, it’s new to me, the intrigue,” he said, watching her work.

“No married women in the repertoire?” she asked. As she knelt, her back to him, he saw the beautiful curve of her ass. He wanted to touch her, to feel her wet hair, but couldn’t.

“How are we supposed to act right now?” he said

“Well, not like lovers, that’s for sure,” she said, standing up. “The place is crawling with my husband’s friends.”

“How are you going to explain me being here?” he asked.

“You are doing a story on my husband, and wanted to speak to his wife. You called me, and we decided to meet here. I’ve already told Carlos that. I’m here for the week at the house. We have a house on the lake.”

“But I’m not doing a story on your husband,” he said. “I’ve finished it.”

“I suggested the idea to him yesterday. He agreed it was a good idea, and said I should call you. He wants to be seen like Al Gore. I’m supposed to be his Tipper,” she said.

“So, I’m here to interview you?” he said.

“Yes. And to see the lake house, and the children, and have dinner tonight.”

“Is Carlos with you here?”

“He flies in this afternoon. Here, to the helipad; I’m to pick him up.”

“What about me?” he asked.

“What about you? You’re staying at the hotel. We’ll have some friends over to the house tonight. He wanted you to come. . . . It’s up to you.”

“Just like that,” he said.

“Yes. Just like that,” she said. “I’ll make it work . . .our affair.”

“Are we going to have an affair?” He looked towards the hotel. Some tourists were coming down the stairs towards the dock. They were middle-aged, their well-pressed clothes giving away their age. They seemed out of sorts, having an argument.

“If you like,” she said. “I want to, very much.”

“I think you’ve made me a little crazy,” he said. He tried to smile, but didn’t know how convincing it was. “But I suppose you’ve heard that before?”

“How about that drink?” she said, not answering his question. She turned and started up the dock.

They passed the older couple who’d been arguing. The woman, stopping them, asked in English where they could rent a boat. The couple turned out to be English; Beatrice was very kind, and spent several minutes talking with them. She seemed to be happy in the company of her countrymen. They slipped into a working class patois. Russell was left out of the conversation for the most part. At one point she touched his shoulder, as she was pointing out Panajachel to the couple. He realized that she was talking to him, saying something to him that had nothing to do with the couple or with the town. There was something about her touch, reaffirming, the way her hand caressed his arm, her finger tips electric. She was saying, “We’re together; we’re together in a way that doesn’t need all that talking, does it?” She looked at him carefully as they were walking up the stairs. The older couple, left behind, were staring out on the lake.

“Are you happy, Russell?” she asked him. “Are you happy you came?”

“Yes, very much,” he said. And meant it.

“I’m not going to be easy,” she said. “It’s very hard for me, too, all this, in case you thought it wasn’t, or that I was some kind of bitch on wheels.”

“No, of course not,” he said. “I understand.”

“I’m not that . . . a bitch who sleeps around,” she said. He didn’t answer. They crossed the patio and went into the hotel’s bar, which seemed very dark after their time in the sun.

They went over the ground rules of their affair over lemonade in the bar. Beatrice had studied all the problems, she said. She thought they would be fine if they followed them. He agreed to whatever she said.

She explained that she would never call him at the office. He could call her on her cell phone to make dates. She said that she paid her cell phone bill herself out of the household money, and no one checked it. She gave him the number as they sat there. There were other rules: no signs of affection in public, no matter where they were in the country, because people from all social classes knew her and, of course, her husband. It would never be safe.

He wasn’t to get too familiar with the children, as they would start to speak about him, she said.

Russell ordered a beer. The owner of the hotel appeared. It was their first test under fire, as it were. Russell stood up very straight as they shook hands, and tried to look relaxed but seem businesslike. Beatrice spoke to the man in Spanish. The owner glanced at him once after they’d shaken hands. It was a questioning look. Any man seen with her had to suffer that look, Russell supposed. But his story sounded good, and he saw the man’s interest stop short of suspicion. The owner had been a school chum of Carlos’s. He told Russell to call him directly if he needed anything. The owner asked him to mention the hotel in his article, if he would be so kind. Russell said he would.

“No promises,” she said after the owner had gone. “That’s another rule.”

“About what?” he said, trying to look indifferent for the sake of the other people milling around.

“No promises about what will happen. You understand. . . Nothing can happen. I have children. They need their father. We can’t fall in love,” she said.

“Have you done this before?” he asked. He was getting a little angry suddenly, listening to her give him rules like a schoolboy. Perhaps it was just the heat and the tension of all the eyes that might get him killed.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just . . . it’s my way. I tend to be analytical in the extreme. It was a problem, the affair in the abstract, like a math problem. I was trained as a mathematician at Oxford.”

“Yes, I know,” he said. He’d read her official bio more than once since they’d met. She’d gotten a first at Oxford.

“I got a scholarship. I’m not from money, if that’s what you were thinking. That Carlos knew me as a child because my father owns Costa Rica or something. We were poor. My mother was a waitress. I am just like those people on the dock. Nothing special about me. I’m working class.”

The young couple he’d seen land in the helicopter came down from their room with a beach bag and went by them en route to the pool. The man looked tough. The girl was elegant-looking and long-legged.

“That’s what all gangsters want. A model,” Beatrice said, looking at them pass.

“How do you know he’s a gangster?” he said.

“Just look at him. Isn’t it obvious? And she’s probably a whore of some kind.”

He was surprised by the accusation. The young woman didn’t seem like a whore.

“So you aren’t wealthy,” he said, trying to get back to her life. He was curious.

“God, no. My father was a coal miner. We lived in one of those dreadful row houses in the north before he left us. It was just like D.H. Lawrence wrote about, nothing there had changed for a hundred years. Except that the pit closed down when Maggie Thatcher had at us. My father left us right after that. I grew up with my mom and my adopted grandmother. I have a sister,” she said.