“Hey, the mystery date,” Richard said. The others at the table turned toward her and she became very aware that she was in a dripping bathing suit (a modest maroon one-piece, but still), wrapped in a towel, in a room of fully dressed men.

“I am one hundred percent dehydrated,” Leslie said.

“Sounds like you should stick to beer,” Richard said. “We’ve got an extra one. I don’t know who ordered it.”

“I did,” said a gray-bearded man with a black ponytail. “It turned out it was fucking cider. You can have it, piss in it, whatever.”

Leslie took the seat nearest to the full glass. The cider was still cold, and it tasted wonderful, dry and slightly carbonated, barely sweet. She was grateful to whoever didn’t want it.

“Where’s Thing Two?” Leslie said to Richard. “Girl you?”

“Dora went to bed,” he said. “We managed to snag the one free room in the lodge. All it took was money.”

“It’s storming out there, but I’m medium confident that our tent is pretty much watertight,” she said. “Jake’s campy, right? Un campesino?”

“He looks it,” Richard said. “I mean, he’s got a beard. You really don’t know him, huh?”

“Is there anything to know?”

“Trust but verify, I guess.”

“And you?” she said.

“I try.”

It was interesting to flirt with unavailable men with whom one had little in common. It was an active opportunity to imagine the world fresh. It would be a more active opportunity, though, if moving her head too quickly didn’t make her dizzy.

“Are these all your buddies?” she said, raising her chin at the table.

“These guys are literally in town from Portland to film a Nike commercial,” Richard said. “You can thank them for your night on the blasted hearth. Heath?”

“Whichever,” Leslie said. “Cheers, sweatshop bozos.”

She drained her glass.

“So any chance you’re, um, putting out tonight?” she said.

He cocked his head. “Are you asking me for money?” he said lightly.

“No,” she said. “The other thing.”

“I think Dor finished the blow, unfortunately,” he said.

Blow? Did people say blow?

“I wanted to sleep in your guys’s bed,” she said. “As, like, a kinky Good Samaritan thing. That’s what everyone’s into now, no? I was mostly messing with you.”

He kept his eyes on her, smiled a tight politician’s smile.

“You’re welcome, definitely, to sleep in our room, since it’s so awful out. I’ll hit the floor, or we can see if we can get a cot or something. That’s absolutely doable.”

Leslie felt the tedium of the night bearing down on her.

“It’s all right, man,” she said. “I’ll do the hearth.”