They turned out the lights and went out the front door. The night air was thick and humid and Henry could feel the earth turning in space. Effie leaned against him and they made a zigzag path down the sidewalk. At their porch, after Max and Clara had said good night, he looked back to the Victorian house and saw a lighted window in the tower. It was Alma, he was sure. They hadn’t explored the tower. He wanted to go back, but it was all he could do to get himself and Effie up the porch steps.

Six

They woke to gusts of warm wind through the attic windows, and by early afternoon the light outside had turned lavender. Raindrops the size of quarters began to fall, and in minutes, with the sound of distant approaching thunder, the rain became a deluge.

They could run over to Clara’s in their bathing suits, Henry said, but Effie wanted to stay in. She felt like burrowing for a while. It looked dangerous out there. And she worried that Clara would begin to think they were freeloaders—all that food and gin, and they’d contributed nothing. “I’m about one hundred percent positive she doesn’t think of us like that,” Henry said, and Effie said he was probably right. But they’d barely touched the groceries they’d bought Sunday, and maybe it would be nice to have a day to themselves. This made Henry happy—that she wanted his company. He said it sounded like a fine idea.

She made ham-and-cheese sandwiches and they ate in the living room with the windows open. The white curtains billowed in like ghosts, and outside, the wind ravaged the trees, and for a long while not a minute went by without a flash of lightning, an echoing boom of thunder. Henry loved the rain. The more violent, the better. He loved the sound it made on their aluminum awnings back home. Effie admitted she had an exaggerated fear of bad weather, but she liked to keep the windows open because she’d heard you were supposed to, in case of tornadoes—something about air pressure. “Do you need me to comfort you?” Henry asked, and she said maybe, and soon they were making love on the sofa—a great release, since he’d been near to bursting that morning, thinking of Clara’s story. He gripped the backs of her knees. When he was spent, finally, she looked winded and pleased.

They played a game of checkers, eschewing their clothes. “Our own bacchanal,” Henry said, and Effie gasped and said, “Oh my God. Could you believe what Clara said? About the harem?”

“I bet she feels mortified today.”

“I bet she doesn’t.” She went back to studying the board. “I think she likes to shock people. She was always that way.”

“Do you think it was a story?”