I stopped for Thai takeout.
By the time I pulled into the driveway, late afternoon light had turned the oak trees gold.
Corbin was pacing beside the pool.
Belle sat on a lounge chair wrapped in one of my white linen towels.
The color was astonishing.
Not dangerous.
Not painful.
Just impossible to ignore.
Orange staining traced the cosmetic residue around her hairline, shoulders, arms, and legs in bright irregular patches. The pool water itself remained clear except for faint temporary ribbons of color where the residue had dispersed.
Belle looked horrified.
Corbin looked furious.
I set my takeout bag on the patio counter.
“Hi.”
Corbin stopped pacing.
“What did you do?”
I looked at Belle.
“Are you uncomfortable?”
“Yes!”
“Any pain?”
“No, but look at me.”
“I am.”
“Tessa.”
Corbin stepped toward me.
“You put something in the pool.”
“Yes.”
His face changed.
“You admit it?”
“It’s maintenance diagnostic marker.”
Belle pulled the towel tighter.
“You did this on purpose?”
“I switched my pool into a standard residue-detection cycle after finding an unapproved cosmetic contaminant on the deck.”
I pointed toward the tanning bottle.
“The marker is harmless.”
Corbin stared.
“How do you know?”
“Because I developed it.”
Silence.
Belle looked at the bottle.
Then at her arms.
“How long does this last?”
“The visible residue should fade significantly after ordinary washing and normal skin turnover. It isn’t an injury.”
“You turned me orange.”
“No.”
I picked up the bottle.
“The residue from this product reacted with the diagnostic marker.”
Corbin looked toward Belle.
Then back at me.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
I finally asked the question he had apparently been hoping I would avoid.
“Why is Belle using our pool?”
His face changed again.
Quickly.
Smoothly.
“She came by with work documents.”
“In a swimsuit?”
“She spilled something.”
Belle stared at him.
Corbin continued.
“She slipped near the pool.”
I looked at the rhinestone flip-flops.
The tanning bottle.
The wet towel.
The second wineglass near the outdoor kitchen.
“Remarkable sequence of accidents.”
“Tessa, don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Do that thing where you act like everything is an experiment.”
I looked at him.
“You mean observe?”
His jaw tightened.
The back gate opened.
Diane walked in.
Of course Diane walked in.
Corbin’s sister-in-law was one of those women who never seemed to arrive anywhere without already having decided what everyone else should do.
She was married to Corbin’s older brother Walter.
Diane chaired charity committees, organized neighborhood events, and had spent seven years explaining my own profession to me at dinner parties.
“Tessa works in chemistry,” she once told a table full of people after I had just finished explaining municipal contaminant tracing.
I did not work in chemistry.
But correcting Diane only encouraged her.
That afternoon, she took one look at Belle and gasped.