Well, all right. It was a cookout, wasn’t it? And it was high time Corey got to know Jackie and Suzie—and Tim too, for that matter. But how had she gotten here—the bus? He was picturing it—she and Corey studying the route map, mounting the steel steps, sliding into the worn vinyl seat and pulling the cord at the intersection of Homer and whatever the cross street was—when he looked up and there she was at the top of the stairs. Fanchon was right behind her, just closing the door of her room, and as they started down the stairs together he could see that they were both high, giggling and making an elaborate game of holding on to each other as if they were afraid of falling, which would have been the most hilarious thing they could imagine, falling like that, teasing out the principles of gravity, cause and effect, body mass and flexibility. Fanchon was in a dress and heels, Joanie in pedal pushers and a yellow blouse he didn’t recognize, her lipstick dulled and her hair in need of brushing.

He wanted to say something witty and breezy to show how unsurprised he was, how happy that she was here, but when they reached the bottom of the stairs, both of them grinning like clowns, all he could say was, “Hi.”

Joanie’s eyes focused on him, then went wide. “We, Corey and I . . .” she began and trailed off.

“You took the bus?”

This was hilarious, both of them breaking down in giggles, laughing so hard they had to hold on to each other all over again, and that was somehow sexy and disturbing at the same time because Joanie was his wife and Fanchon wasn’t and now his wife was tripping—obviously tripping—without him. And worse: he was coming down, had come down, and she was just taking off. A thought he’d entertained more times than he could count flew in and out of his head: he wanted to see Fanchon naked. Or no, he wanted to fuck Fanchon.

“No, no, no,” Fanchon said through a new storm of giggles, “I have picked her up. So she can, you know, join the party. After all”—and here she gave him an unreadable look, all mobile mouth and overblown eyes—“it is only fair, no? While the husband’s away, the wife will play. Or does play—isn’t that it? Does play?”

“What about Corey?”