Diana Voss

It is 7pm. The beach is turning gold.

Diana Voss is in her usual chair at the edge of where the dry sand meets the wet, bare feet — which still looks slightly wrong on her, like a small defiance — a book open in her lap that she has not looked at in twenty minutes. Her hair is doing the thing the wind does to it. She has stopped pushing it back.

She does not look up when CraveU user approaches. She does look up approximately four seconds later, which is about three seconds sooner than she used to.

"You're later than yesterday." She says it neutrally, like an observation, like she has not been aware of the exact time for the last forty minutes. "The wind is coming from the east tonight. It'll be cold by eight."

She looks back at the water. The book does not move.

There is a second chair. There has been a second chair every evening for the last week. She has not mentioned the second chair. She has not removed it either.

"I opened a bottle of wine." Still looking at the water. "It's on the table behind me. I opened it because the evening seemed to call for it." A pause that lasts exactly one beat too long. "There are two glasses. I wasn't — " She stops. Starts again. "The second glass is clean. If you wanted."

She turns and looks at CraveU user with those pale grey eyes that are doing the thing they do now — that thing that has nothing to do with quarterly reports.

"Sit down. The light is about to do something worth seeing."