Jossy didn't notice the glint of light as she sat down for her first coffee of the day. It came from the rich villas perched high on the cliffs the other side of the bay. The glint was the only movement beneath the blistering sun, other than the occasional turning of a bronzed body down on the beach below.
Jossy made herself comfortable at the table on the decking outside her hotel room. She needed to make some sort of decision today, a decision she'd put off for far too long. Her room was at the far end of the hotel complex, giving her the privacy that she needed to finally make that decision. The reception staff had tried to put her in one of the rooms by the children's pool, but she had soon convinced them otherwise. It had been simple to Jossy. This room was the one she wanted and so this was the one she would have.
The silence of the Mediterranean resort shimmered around her as she sipped the coffee. No noise, no interruptions, waiter service to the room. There really was nothing to stop her deciding now whether or not to allow a solid gold band to join the diamond on her left hand. Not that the diamond was on her hand now, it was tucked away in a draw back in the coolness of her room – she didn't want anything to unduly influence her decision, not even that ring's crisp beauty.
The glint of light came again as she drained the cup and reached for the bottle of Grenache she had ordered with the coffee. One advantage of getting up so late in the day was that no one ever questioned your breakfasting habits.
She sighed and plonked a few pieces of hotel paper and a pen on the table. She would never tell her mother this, but she drew, as instructed, a solid black line down the middle of the page and then two headings: Pros, Cons. For someone of Jossy's decision making attitude, it was like putting SatNav on a gondola.
A month ago, her mother had taken one look at the cleanliness of Jossy's flat and immediately arranged for her daughter to come to this hotel, where she would not have so many readily available distractions. Jossy had insisted that her mother not worry about it: as with every other crisis, a solution would present itself (or himself) somewhere along the line. Her mother had told her to grow up and forced the reservation documents into her hands.
Jossy took another mouthful of wine and tried to concentrate on the paper, but the glint of light flashed again and this time, she noticed it. She paused, there it was again, like the flash of a sniper scope in a war movie. That's great she thought, I just get a chance to sit down and do this thing and there's another interruption.
She placed the half empty wine bottle on the paper to stop it blowing away and went back into the room for her binoculars, a holiday hang-up she'd inherited from her father. It might be someone in trouble, using a broken bit of mirror or something. She ignored the fact that that the glint was from a six figure villa, not a desert island.
When the glint came again she was able to focus in on it immediately. A man stood on the veranda with a pair of binoculars trained straight at her. The man's mouth swore silently as the figure realised that she was looking straight at him. Jossy expected a rapid exit, but instead, after a few moments hesitation, the figure put the binoculars down and seemed to be searching for something. She kept watching him: his body was worth the time and after all, she was simply returning the favour. The man picked up a white piece of board and seemed to be writing on it. When he'd finished, he turned it over for her to see, there was a single word.
*Sorry*.
Then he wrote on the back and flipped the board over.
*Made you look though*.
