It’s amusing to me, unless dismaying, that my companion never asks me about myself. Though I have inquired about her life with genuine interest and curiosity, Keisha does not think to ask me a single question. Too shy, I suppose. Women of her class are not comfortable asking questions of what might seem to them a managerial class.

At McGuire’s, the bantering red-haired McGuire is free to chide and tease his employees, but they dare not chide and tease him in turn. All they can do is laugh, with varying degrees of mirth.

Also, Keisha is (probably) just not curious about me. Whoever I am, I dwell beyond the range of anyone who might factor meaningfully in her life.

Our orders are brought to the table: a large, lavish fruit salad for Keisha, served in a hollowed-out pineapple; charcuterie et fromage for me, on a marble platter with a sprig of grapes and fancy Waterstones crackers.

Keisha stares at her food and laughs forlornly. “Oh! This is kind of—fancy …”

“Yes, indeed. Very nice.”

How childlike, the woman’s eyes. Almost, it seems as if the pupils are dilated. Beautiful eyes, though still slightly bloodshot.

“Just eat as much as you want, dear. You should try to put on weight, you know.”

Again, dear. Unconsciously the incriminating word has slipped out.

But Keisha seems scarcely to notice. Perhaps nothing about me is noticeable to her.

“Guess I don’t have a whole lot of appetite, most days. Also, I have to make supper when I get home. I can’t stay much longer here. I have to try to eat with them, too. I should.”

Valiantly Keisha lifts a fork, impales a small slice of pineapple. Minutes are required for her to chew the tangy fruit, as I spread brie onto crackers. On the river the sun is losing definition, dissolving into the western sky behind successive hills like something spilled.

Prodded by my questions—(I abhor the vacuum of silence in a situation like this, for which I have only myself to blame)—Keisha begins to tell me more about herself. Yes, she’d been born in Herrontown. She’d gone to school in Herrontown. She’d gotten married in Herrontown—both times.

Both times?—politely, I express surprised interest.

“The first time, I was nineteen. Y’know—had to get married.” Keisha laughs, daringly. Thinks better of it, biting at her lip. “That didn’t last—that was sad. He enlisted in the Marines—they sent him to the Gulf—when he came back, he wasn’t the same … Anyway,” Keisha says, sighing, trying to spear an elusive single Concord grape on her fork, “it didn’t last, and we had three kids. But—”

“Are you still on good terms with him?”

Naïve question! Immediately I regret it.

Keisha shakes her head, pained. Anyway—there came another husband, seven years later.

Wanly Keisha smiles. It is clear to me that the woman yearns to confide in me, yes this second marriage is problematic too, but no, she cannot speak so frankly, so intimately to a stranger. Cannot speak of the man who is the husband, the husband right now, she has no choice but to defend and protect.