Stepping from her clogs, she tossed her cardigan on the sofa. The soft, rounded contours of her breasts were outlined against the snug lilac tube top. To my right, I noticed a hallway that presumably led to the bedrooms.

“Do I get the grand tour?” I asked.

“Drink?” she said, going into the kitchen, which was separated from the living room by a butcher-block counter and stools.

“Any kind of bourbon,” I said, tailing her. Skillets, cooking utensils, a spice rack, and a wok were fastened to the brick wall. Weird. Glenna had considered cooking an art practiced at McDonald’s.

On tiptoes, she searched the skyline of liquor bottles on the refrigerator. Her leg muscles stretched, sinews straining, like in that breathless instant before she came. I retreated to the living room, and Glenna walked out of the kitchen, empty-handed. “No bourbon. I have wine, sherry, scotch, vodka, or gin.”

Her face tilted toward me, and I knew she would have let me kiss her. I took a breath and wished I had a cigarette.

“No, that’s all right,” I said.

“There’s a liquor store on Eighth. I’ll go in a minute. You’ll stay for a while, won’t you?”

I unzipped my field jacket, and she sat on the sofa, her hair breaking over her green eyes in a shimmering wave. Like Veronica Lake, my father had said. A knockout.

“Glenna, do you ever wonder—”

“Wondering makes me sad,” she said, looking up, and the wave receded over her shoulders.

“In Vietnam, I did a lot of sitting on LPs—”

“LPs?”

“Listening posts. Where you hide and watch. That was my main job. Hiding in the jungle, watching trails. We did it in five-man teams. I was bored and terrified, and I made up this family. You, me, a little boy and girl. Like a TV show. I called it The Adventures of Us. I felt better, imagining a family. Then the team would have to make it to an extraction point to get on a helicopter. We were maybe three kilometers from North Vietnam. Ambushes. Mines. You had to be heads-up or you were all done, so I had to stop imagining the family. I hated that. It was like losing you and—”

Massaging the cushion next to her, Glenna said, “Sit with me.”

I sat just as footsteps pounded up to the fourth landing. Glenna stiffened; a key jangled in the lock; and in stormed a woman immaculately turned out in a skimpy rawhide jacket, glossy black Qiana shirt, crushed-denim elephant bells, and platform clogs. Her blond hair, as short and tidy as a British schoolboy’s, was woven with gray, and her face was an enchanting collection of smooth planes and angles. In more tranquil moments the face would have been pretty, but not now—not with anger sharpening the features like a whetstone.

Glenna stood, and the woman glowered at her, saying, “What is it you are doing?”

Glenna said, “Hildi, you told me you were going to Westport for the weekend.”