The Backyard Arbitration

The dog — a golden retriever named after some ex-girlfriend of his, she'd stopped caring which one — lay panting on the patio tiles. Sarah watched its ribcage expand and contract, wishing she could trade places with something that only needed to worry about whether it was time for dinner yet.

"You're doing it again," Mark said, appearing in the sliding glass door with a tray of drinks. "That face. Like you're solving for x in some equation where x is my fault."

She took the gin and tonic. "I'm not solving anything. I'm sitting here while you and your business associates dominate the pool."

"They're not associates, Sarah, they're friends. And we're not dominating it, we're playing pool. There's a difference."

Whatever. The floating chlorine resort in their backyard was full of men she'd met at three different Christmas parties over eight years, men whose names she cycled through like seasonal allergies. Dave? Mitch? The one who kept calling her "sport" like they were characters in some Aaron Sorkin fever dream.

Inside, something shattered. A glass. The bull — an enormous metal sculpture they'd bought in Santa Fe last year, the one that had started a three-day fight about whether it was art or pretentious yard debris — had been knocked into by someone's elbow. Or someone's ass. Hard to say.

"That's seven hundred years of bad luck," Mark shouted from the pool, like this was all very funny.

The hostess with the leastest, she thought, standing up to assess the damage. A shard of glass had landed in the leftover spinach dip, a green confetti of domestic terrorism.

"I'll get the broom," she said, but Mark was already out of the pool, dripping wet, grabbing her wrist.

"Let the new guy get it. The one who just started at the firm. What's his name — the one who played baseball in college?"

"You mean Tom?"

"Yeah, him. He's young. He wants to impress people. Let him impress us."

He pulled her toward the water instead, and God help her, she went. The dog lifted its head at the commutation of her sentence, watching her step into the shallow end in her linen dress, watching Mark wrap his wet arms around her waist in front of everyone, watching them both pretend that this was something people who loved each other did. The bull glinted in the sunset from its fallen position on the patio. The dog went back to sleep.

Later, she'd remember the glass glittering in the dip like stars in a galaxy where everyone was happy and nothing needed fixing. Later, she'd remember the way Mark's colleagues had looked away, embarrassed, as if they'd all stumbled into the wrong room by mistake. Later, she'd wonder whether staying had become a habit she was too exhausted to break.

But for now, the water was warm, and his arms were familiar, and the dog was dreaming, and tomorrow was another day to be someone who knew what she was doing with her one wild and precious life.