Page 27 of The Spirit of Love

I run my fingers through the sand, wanting to touch him, wanting to close every distance between our bodies. “It’s tempting.”

“Just tell me what else I have to do. Or…tell me how back home competes with all this.”

“You mean, my life?”

“Yeah,” he says, scooting closer so he’s right next to me, so our knees are touching, our shoulders brushing as we gaze into the fire. “What do you love about Venice? What do you love about your job?”

I think a moment. “What excites me about directing is helping the cast bring out the best version of their characters. It requires really getting to know the actors and what they want, both in and outside their roles. Like, most people think the one kid star on our show is a diva, but once you get to know him, he’s really more like a gangly Buddha. Looking close enough to see that in Buster shows me how to lean in. It shows me how to shape episodes around what he’s already great at doing, which maybe no one else has noticed—”

“Fenny.”

“Uh-huh?”

“I’m loving hearing about your work,” he says, his voice dropped to a whisper, “but right now I need you to shhhhh.”

“What?”

“Shhhhh,” he says, leaning closer, putting one hand on my chin, and looking into my eyes. He puts a finger to his lips. Is this the moment? Have I finally waited long enough to meet his lips?

He tilts my chin a few degrees to the left.

“Look,” he whispers.

There’s a hummingbird six inches from my face. Sam and I both grow completely still to watch the creature sip nectar fromthe bud of a magenta thistle flower. We stare at its wings, blurred in phosphorescent motion. We watch its throat pulse as it swallows greedy gulps. We watch its eyes focus on each bud before it plants its beak in the stamen. We listen to the whir of its tiny, ferocious life before our eyes. It’s one of those things that you know, even as it’s happening in the present tense, that you’ll never forget, no matter how far in the distance your future stretches. And when Sam squeezes my hand, I get the feeling he’s thinking exactly the same thing.

It feels like eons pass before the hummingbird has had its fill, and when it flies off and disappears into the fading light, the moment is gone too soon.

“Tell me Buster competes with that,” Sam says.

Chapter Seven

“What’s the story with thisguy?” Sam asks, reaching for the viewfinder I wear around my neck. It’s after sunset on the secret beach, and there are more stars out in the sky than I have ever seen. We’ve eaten every delicious morsel of the halibut I speared and Sam grilled, and we’ve drained the last drops of a bottle of white wine. It feels like Sam and I have known each other all our lives, yet also like we’re just getting started.

“It’s a viewfinder,” I tell him. “You hold it up to your eye to see what the camera will see, to frame a shot in your mind before a crew takes hours setting up.” I lift the lanyard from my neck and drape it over Sam’s. “Try it.”

“Is it expensive? I don’t want to break it.”

“I got it for five dollars at a flea market. There are a million more where this one came from.”

“A million more that haven’t been touched by you.” Sam puts it to his eye and looks at me. “Oh, yeah. Great shot.”

“Don’t frame me,” I say, embarrassed, pushing gently on his hand. “Frame something artful and unexpected. Like the wine bottle we should have brought two of.”

“Nah. I don’t see anything but you.” He gets closer, close enough so I know he’s framing just my face. “I like this thing. I feel like it lets me see more somehow.”

“Yeah,” I say, understanding. “That’s it.”

Sam lowers the viewfinder from his face and reaches into his sweatshirt to pull out the chain I’d noticed him wearing earlier. “I’ve got a viewfinder, too. This one’s called an adder stone.”

He holds up the stone between his thumb and forefinger. It’s ebony black, the right size and thickness for skipping, except for an unusual hole, about the diameter of my pinkie, just off center of the stone.

“Did you find it here, on the island?”

He nods. “I’ve got this coffee table book calledStonesin the cabin. I looked up this one and it says that, in Celtic legend, if you look through an adder stone, you’re supposed to be able to glimpse another world.”

I run my fingers around the stone, sandy here and smooth there. I dip my pinky in the hole, touching Sam’s palm on the other side.

“Does it work?” I ask.

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