flashy in a way that reminded him of stewardesses—a stylized, overly wrought femininity that he associated with the service sector. Her obviousness made him feel virtuous. If Nancy were a film, she'd be Superman II. Corrine was, say, Hiroshima Mon Amour.
Nancy spotted Russell and winked, then caught up with him at the bar. “Behaving yourself?” she asked.
“Trying.”
“Haven't seen you since … you remember.”
For a moment he thought she meant the dream. “How's your step father?” he said.
“My stepfather?” She looked baffled for a moment. “Oh, he's fine. He's better. Where's Corrine?” she asked, much as one asks after a tagalong sibling who has finally been given the slip. He felt that if he didn't challenge her tone, he'd be implicated in a developing conspiracy.
“Working,” he said.
“All work and no play …” She arched her eyebrows and then escaped before he could register his indignation. That was going a little too far. He got a drink and plunged back into the crowd.
“We were just wondering what happened to Dino Signorelli,” Rick said when Russell joined his circle.
“Last I heard, he was selling seeds in South Dakota.”
“Spilling seed, you mean,” Tom Dalton said.
“That guy could fake a guard like nobody's business.”
“He could bend an elbow, too,” Russell observed.
Russell was listening to Skip Blackman's girlfriend—who had never looked so good—talk about her incredibly boring job when Nancy touched his shoulder.
“Got a cigarette?”
Russell was about to say he'd quit, but he deftly turned the reflex into a negative monosyllable.
“Let's find some,” she said, her sparkling eyes seeming to make this simple notion witty and daring.
She took his hand and he followed her, feeling crisp and purposeful in his movements, negotiating the tight throng of bodies and the carpeted floor like an expert skier rounding the poles of a hazardous slalom course.
“I think I've got some in my coat,” she said, leading him into one of the bedrooms. She closed the door behind them. He reached for her and drew her face to his, his feeling of precision and control dissolving, the ski slope giving way to a free fall through the clouds.
Shortly before midnight, Russell reeled toward home. His legs were wobbly, but this was a transparent defensive strategy, a white lie on the part of the body on behalf of the guilty mind. It didn't work. His head was utterly clear, an acoustically perfect amphitheater for the voices of accusation. He told himself that it could have been worse; they hadn't closed the deal, those few minutes in the bedroom. But they might have. They were well en route when somebody came in looking for a coat.
He took off his shoes in the hallway, eased the keys into the locks. The apartment was dark. He crept to the bedroom, which was empty. He tried to feel relief, told himself he had a second chance. He couldn't have faced Corrine tonight. She would have seen right through him.
Russell was in bed when he heard the stealthy tick of keys and tumblers. With one eye half-open, he watched the door of the bedroom. The hallway remained dark. Eventually he heard her tiptoe into the bedroom; accustomed to the dark, he could see that she was carrying her shoes.
He pretended to be asleep as she undressed and slipped into bed beside him. He wanted to take her in his arms.
Corrine lay very still beside him. He waited for her rapid breathing to resolve itself into the rhythm of sleep; she could fall asleep on a dime. Instead, her breath became shorter, more irregular, until he realized that she was crying. Somehow she knew. Russell cursed himself for violating this intimacy, which over the years had become so finely tuned that she was able, even in the silent dark, to sense a change in pitch. Then he decided that was absurd. He began to wonder where she'd been all night.
“Oh, Russell,” she said. “I'm sorry.”
He lifted himself on an elbow and tried to see her face in the dark.
“What do you mean, you're sorry?”
She began to sob. Her back was heaving. She was trying to say something, but her words were muffled by the pillow.
“What?” he said.
When she finally spoke, it was in a dull, featureless voice that he had never heard before. “Tonight,” she said, “tonight I had a couple cigarettes.…”
She said more, but the sound of her voice was already fading away as Russell lay back on his own pillow, feeling the chill blast of the air conditioner on his face, imagining himself henceforth as