Eventually they’d gone to the bar, where she’d admitted to not knowing anybody. She claimed it wasn’t her usual place and then refused to dance to the band, which was too indie for her taste. The end of the night featured a perfunctory kiss that stirred nothing but loneliness in Cliff. It was not like kissing Jill, which conjured a primal sensation from somewhere behind his belly button. Sometimes, when he thought of Jill, this spot still ached; he imagined it glowing a fantastic white if put under an X-ray.

Because he did not wish to extend the date beyond the show at the bar, Cliff arrived back to Heidi’s house at a reasonable hour. She was still awake, reading beneath the light of a gaudy brass lamp. At some point she’d told Cliff a story about the lamp—some long anecdote that took place in a foreign country and involved an act of cultural savvy on her husband’s part—but he could not, at the moment, remember the details or why the lamp was at all important.

“Cliff,” she called out. “Come in here and tell me about your date.” He considered walking straight to his room, pretending not to hear her, but a sense of guilt guided him into the living room, where he sat down on the sofa across from her. He noticed that while he’d been gone she’d dyed her hair, which she usually wore in a single braid down her back but which, tonight, she’d let down, so that it fell across both of her shoulders. The color was meant to be black, but looked purple in the light of the lamp.

“How did you know I was on a date?” he asked.

“Oh, I can always tell with boys. It’s so obvious. The cologne. Your nerves.”

He allowed himself a smile, amused that he’d been so easy to see through. “The date was fine. Nothing special.”

“Not the one?”

“Definitely not.”

She took a piece of her purple hair and twirled it around her finger. “Ask me how I met my husband.”

Cliff did not want to ask, but knew that he had to. He hoped the story would not take long. “How did you meet him?”

She sat up straight, as if invigorated. “He saved my life in the Grand Canyon. I was hiking with a friend and we had stopped to have a snack. Grant and a buddy of his were hiking up as we were hiking down. They stopped and ate with us and we ended up chatting. That’s when a bee landed on my knee. You should know I’m deathly allergic to bees—my throat closes right up. I tried to stay calm but I had a whole scenario built up in my head—helicopters and one of those horrible stretchers that dangle in the air. That’s when Grant just flicked the bee right off my leg, like you’d flick a fly from a piece of fruit. He went right on talking as if nothing had happened, but I’d decided he’d saved my life. We met up again at our campsite that night. And that was that. No dates about it.”