“How much?” she asks.

“What you mean by how much?”

She must feel her bra strap, ’cause now she makes a hook outta her index finger and pull it back up on her shoulder. I just noticed that she changed her nail polish. It’s a bubble-gum pink with green palm trees on each finger. She got some kinda imagination. “Okay. You know how they measure earthquakes, right?”

“Yeah, on a Richter scale,” I say, even though I thank she about to lose me, but, then again, I don’t usually have no trouble following Brenda’s line of thanking, so why should I thank she about to get all philosophical on me now?

“Okay. So how high was that last one in L.A.?”

“I don’t know. But it was a big one.”

“Of course it was, Cecil! It had to be at least a eight—something to kill folks and do the kinda damage it did, am I right?”

“You right.”

“Okay, so let’s say a nine is like the very highest earthquake, and say like a three ain’t nothin’ but a little tremor. Where do your feelings for me fall on the Richter scale, Cecil?”

That’s all she getting at? “It’s a easy eight, Brenda.”

“Don’t lie to me, Cecil.”

“I ain’t lying, girl. You the best thang that’s done happened to me in a long time. I ache for you. My feet don’t hardly touch the ground when I walk, and when I do I can’t even hardly feel my bunions no more. What about your feelings?”

She take a sip of her beer, then decide to go on and finish it. She set the bottle down and stands up. She do some kind of sexy stretch so her breasts rise up and then fall. Then she cup her hands over both of ’em and squeeze. “You could be on your way to being a eight, too.”

“What is that supposed to mean: ‘on my way’?”

“Well, we got some decisions we gotta make.”

“Like what?”

“Well, tell me something. Since your wife didn’t die, was you planning on getting a divorce any time soon?”

“Of course I am. We over here living in sin. It ain’t right. I know that. Your kids is little now, but not for long.”

“How soon?”

“Well, I gotta let the woman get back on her feet, and I just told you, we got some financial problems we have to straighten out first. It ain’t as easy as one two three, Brenda. Why you wanna know all this today, when we done talked about it before?”

“ ’Cause things is different.”

“What’s different?”

“Something done happened and I can’t do nothin’ about it.”

“Something like what?”

Next thang I know, she look toward the kitchen to see if the kids is looking, and they ain’t, so she lift up her light-blue top and pull both her breasts out from under her bra. “Do they look bigger?”

“I can’t say. I ain’t never really looked at ’em with no ruler in mind.”