Someone's aunt has a house above the bay. Nobody remembers whose aunt, and it has stopped mattering. The key is under the third pot on the left, the one with the dead rosemary, and the arrangement has three conditions. You water what is still alive. You leave the place better than you found it. You are back by Sunday.
The house is not beautiful in the way of magazines. The shutters stick. The kitchen has one good knife. But there is a terrace with a balustrade, a cypress that leans toward the water, and a table long enough for everyone who turns up on Saturday without being asked. You lean on the balustrade with a glass in your hand and pretend the view is normal. That is the whole skill.
The print
The engraving on the back is that terrace. Cypress, balustrade, the shape of the bay behind it, drawn like a plate from an old travel book. THE BORROWED VILLA in tall serif underneath, and the one condition that matters in small print: back by Sunday.
It is the largest print of the series, because the villa is the biggest lie you will tell all summer and it deserves the space.
How to wear it
With cream shorts and the straw hat you found in the hallway. In white while the sun is up, in black when the terrace lights come on and someone opens the second bottle. The house was never yours. The shirt is the only thing you get to keep.