Goldfish in the Deep End

The pool at the Hotel Valencia was empty at 3 AM, which was exactly why Marcus was there. He'd stopped being able to sleep somewhere around the time his wife stopped looking him in the eye during dinner.

He sat on the edge, feet dangling in the chlorinated water, watching the single goldfish that had somehow survived in the hotel's ornamental fountain. It was orange—the same impossible, vibrant orange as the scarf Lena had worn the night she told him she'd been promoted to a position in London. Three weeks ago. The scarf was still draped over their bedroom chair, a permanent fixture he couldn't bring himself to move.

"You're going to prune," a voice said.

Marcus jumped. A woman in a hotel robe stood there, holding two glasses of champagne. He'd seen her at the bar earlier—alone, drinking whiskey despite the wedding party happening three rooms over.

"Your fingers," she said, nodding at his hands. "From the pool water. You'll prune."

"So?"

"So you'll have wrinkled fingers when you finally decide to do something about your life." She set one glass beside him and sat on the other side of the pool, not close enough to be intimate, not far enough to be polite. "I'm Sarah. My husband's upstairs with the maid of honor. Or maybe the bridesmaid. He's working his way through the wedding party."

"My wife is moving to London," Marcus said. "We're not discussing it. That's the arrangement. We don't discuss it."

"Sounds healthy." Sarah sipped her champagne. "My husband says I'm too emotional. That's why he—what he does. I feel too much, apparently."

The goldfish surfaced, gulping at air before sinking again. Marcus watched it disappear into the fountain's dark water.

"That fish," he said. "It's been here three days. I keep coming back to check if it's still alive."

"Why?"

"Because someone put it there. They didn't even have the decency to flush it. Just abandoned it in a fountain too small for proper swimming, thinking it might adapt." Marcus pulled his feet from the water. Wrinkled, exactly as Sarah had predicted. "You think fish knows its life isn't what it's supposed to be?"

Sarah set down her glass. She took Marcus's pruned, wet hand in hers. Her palm was warm, calloused in ways that suggested she worked with her hands, despite the manicure.

"I think it knows," she said. "I think it's waiting for someone to either finish what they started or put it out of its misery." She squeezed his fingers. "What are you waiting for, Marcus?"

The goldfish surfaced again, orange and impossibly alive in the artificial light. Marcus thought about London. About the orange scarf on his bedroom chair. About the years of conversations they weren't having.

"I don't know," he said. But he didn't pull his hand away.