8

The dolphin wind chimes dance in the sea breeze, clattering together dully. A storm is racing across the sky from the east, waves pounding on the beach, but it's still warm and sunny here. The storm won't be here till nightfall, when Ruby will go out, and the dusty streets will be cobbled under pelting rain, and that certain smell of a hot country doused in water will rise into the air. She'll wear her red dress, the one with the ruffled hem, and she'll take a pretty dark-skinned boy home.
The photographer tells her not to move.
"Just like that, Miss Ruby."
The amber ring on her finger was her mother's. She wore it every day, and sometimes after Denise's marriage was ended, Ruby would steal into her room and slip the worn silver band onto her too-small finger, still warm from her mother's body.
The dress is Ruby's own, and she knows it as well as her own body, by now; every frill, every crease, every jewel, every seam. Peter had it commissioned especially for the engagement photographs.
It makes her blood pump harder to know that he suspects nothing.