I heard Cheney's car long before he turned the corner from Bay onto Albanil. His headlights flashed into view and I got to my feet, silently cursing the loss of my shoulder bag. I'd been forced to pack – if you want to call it that – a few things in a paper sack, like a kid's brown-bag lunch: clean underwear, a toothbrush, my wallet, and keys. Cheney was driving with the top down again, but when I got in the car I realized the heater was turned on full blast, which meant that half of me would be warm.

He spotted the sack. "That your overnight case?"

I held up the brown bag. "It's part of a matching set. I have another forty-nine just like it in my kitchen drawer."

"Nice skirt."

"Thanks to Reba. I wasn't going to buy it, but she insisted."

"Good deal." He waited until I'd fastened my seat belt and then he pulled away.

I said, "I can't believe we're doing this. Don't you ever sleep?"

"I promised you a house tour. Last time, all you saw was the bedroom ceiling."

I held up a finger. "I have a question."

"What's that?"

"Is this how you ended up married so fast? You meet old What's-Her-Face and spend every night with her for the first three weeks. Week four, she moves in. Week five, you're engaged, and by week six, you're married and off on your honeymoon. Is that the way it went?"

"Not quite, but close. Why, does that bother you?"

"Well, no. I just wondered how much time I had to get the invitations out."

Cheney conducted a tour, starting with the downstairs rooms. The house was more than a hundred years old and reflected a way of life long past. Most of the original mahogany fireplaces, doors, window trim, and baseboards were still intact. Tall, narrow windows, high ceilings, transoms above the doors to aid the circulation of air. There were five working fireplaces on the first floor and four more in the bedrooms upstairs. The parlor (a concept that has since gone the way of the dodo bird) continued into the morning room, which in turn opened onto a gracious screened-in porch. In the adjacent laundry room, the old double tubs existed side-by-side with a wood-fueled stove for heating water.

Cheney was in the process of redoing the living room where the hardwood floor was covered in canvas drop cloths. Wallpaper had been steamed off and lay in discouraged-looking clumps. The plaster had been patched and the windowpanes had been taped in preparation for painting. He'd taken off one of the doors, which he'd laid across two sawhorses and covered with canvas to provide a surface for any tools not in use. The brass hardware – doorknobs, lock plates, window latches, and pulls – were jumbled into cardboard boxes in one corner of the room.

"How long have you had the house?"

"Little over a year."