in the background, Elizabeth leaned into him so close that he could feel each of her slow, languid breaths. He closed his eyes as she put her head on his shoulder, and in that instant, nothing else mattered. Not the song, not the place, not the other couples around him. Only this, only her. He gave himself over to the feel of her body as it pressed against him, and they moved slowly in small circles on the sawdust-strewn floor, lost in a world that felt as though it had been created for just the two of them.
As they drove home on darkened roads, Thibault held her hand and felt her thumb tracking slowly over his skin in the quiet of the car.
When he pulled into his driveway a little before eleven, Zeus was still lying on the porch and raised his head as Thibault turned off the ignition. He turned to face her.
“I had a wonderful time tonight,” he murmured. He expected her to say the same, but she surprised him with her response.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” she suggested.
“Yes,” he said simply.
Zeus sat up as Thibault opened Elizabeth’s door and stood as Elizabeth got out. His tail started to wag.
“Hey, Zeus,” Elizabeth called out.
“Come,” Thibault commanded, and the dog bounded from the porch and ran toward them. He circled them both, his cries sounding like squeaks. His mouth hung half-open in a grin as he preened for their attention.
“He missed us,” she said, bending lower. “Didn’t you, big boy?” As she bent lower, Zeus licked her face. Straightening up, she wrinkled her nose before wiping her face. “That was gross.”
“Not for him,” Thibault said. He motioned toward the house. “You ready? I have to warn you not to expect too much.”
“Do you have a beer in the fridge?”
“Yes.”
“Then don’t worry about it.”
They made their way up the steps of the house. Thibault opened the door and flipped the switch: A single floor lamp cast a dim glow over an easy chair near the window. In the center of the room stood a coffee table decorated only with a pair of candles; a medium-size couch faced it. Both the couch and the easy chair were covered in matching navy blue slipcovers, and behind them, a bookshelf housed a small collection of books. An empty magazine rack along with another floor lamp completed the minimalist furnishings.
Still, it was clean. Thibault had made sure of that earlier in the day. The pine floors had been mopped, the windows washed, the room dusted. He disliked clutter and despised dirt. The endless dust in Iraq had only reinforced his neatnik tendencies.
Elizabeth took in the scene before walking into the living room.
“I like it,” she said. “Where did you get the furniture?”
“It came with the place,” he said.
“Which explains the slipcovers.”
“Exactly.”
“No television?”
“No.”
“No radio?”
“No.”
“What do you do when you’re here?”
“Sleep.”
“And?”
“Read.”
“Novels?”
“No,” he said, then changed his mind. “Actually, a couple. But mostly biographies and histories.”
“No anthropology texts?”
“I have a book by Richard Leakey,” he said. “But I don’t like a lot of the heavy postmodernist anthropology books that seem to dominate the field these days, and in any case those kinds of books aren’t easy to come by in Hampton.”
She circled the furniture, running her finger along the slipcovers. “What did he write about?”
“Who? Leakey?”
She smiled. “Yeah. Leakey.”
He pursed his lips, organizing his thoughts. “Traditional anthropology is primarily interested in five areas: when man first began to evolve, when he started to walk upright, why there were so many hominid species, why and how those species evolved, and what all of that means for the evolutionary history of modern man. Leakey’s book mainly talked about the last four, with a special emphasis on how toolmaking and weapons influenced the evolution of Homo sapiens.”
She couldn’t hide her amusement, but he could tell she was impressed.
“How about that beer?” she asked.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” he said. “Make yourself comfortable.”
He returned with two bottles and a box of matches. Elizabeth was seated in the middle of the couch; he handed her one of the bottles and took a seat beside her, dropping the matches on the table.
She immediately picked up the matches and struck one, watching as the small flame flickered to life. In a fluid motion, she held it to the wicks, lighting both candles, then extinguished the match.
“I hope you don’t mind. I love the smell of candles.”
“Not at all.”
He rose from the couch to turn off the lamp, the room now dimly