She gave him an incredulous look. “I’m not getting stuffed into anything.”

“What about your friend? Maybe she can go get you something to wear.”

“Samantha? She’s not my friend. I don’t even know her. What I will do is I’ll wear your coat. That way it’ll just look like you’re my boyfriend. Like you’re sweet, letting me wear your stuff in the cold.”

“But then what?”

“What do you mean then what? Then I go home. Then you go home.”

“And what about the coat?”

“I’ll mail it to you. Or we can meet somewhere.”

Ben knew it wouldn’t work—he couldn’t trust a girl like her. “Forget the coat for a minute. I’ll go down and find your dress.”

“You just said some drunks took it.”

“Well, they did. But it was all wet so they dropped it. It’s down there still, I’m sure of it.”

“And if it’s not?”

“Then we’ll wrap you in my coat and get a cab.”

“All right. But can you hurry? I feel like I’m going to get caught.”

“You shouldn’t feel that way. Nothing’s happened.”

“But it feels like it has. I feel dirty.”

Ben shook his head. “Don’t. I don’t.”

He was about to shut the door when she said, “Ben?”

“What is it?”

She tightened the towel around her body. “I’ll still get paid, won’t I?”

Ben smiled at her. “Of course,” he said, and then shut the door and left.

He was just outside the hotel when he saw the old woman from the water fountain sitting on a bench where the taxis came. An old man sat beside her, his hand on her knee. The woman now had a paisley scarf around her neck and the man sported an old-timey pageboy hat. Both of them wore houndstooth coats. As Ben walked by, the woman jostled the man’s arm. “Irving, it’s that boy I was telling you about. The one who helped me with my bag.”

The old man nodded and waved at Ben, who waved back but increased his pace, not wanting to get stuck in a conversation.

“Watch out for falling angels!” the old woman called to him. Before Ben was out of earshot, he heard the old man say, “I’m telling you, it wasn’t an angel it was a cat. A white cat.”

As he walked, Ben wondered what exactly the couple was doing sitting out in the cold. Perhaps they were waiting for a cab to take them to a late-night movie, during which one or the both of them would fall asleep. Later, in bed for the night, they would laugh about it. All that money spent just to take a nap in an uncomfortable chair. They would wear flannel pajamas and go to sleep with a perfunctory kiss on the lips. And they would be happy about it, for they would have not only the mild pleasure of the moment but also the severe pleasure of looking back on all they had shared together, a bounty of love that followed them everywhere they went, like the train of a wedding gown. Or perhaps they had not been waiting for a cab at all. Perhaps they had just been watching, enjoying the spectacle of people who populated the streets this time of night.