“The movie starts at seven-thirty, you know.”

“I know,” she says, “that’s why I took a bath now,” and, a new Janice, still standing with her back to him, nestles her bottom against his fly, lifting herself on tiptoe and arching her back to make a delicate double damp spreading contact. His mind softens; his prick hardens. “Besides,” Janice is going on, edging herself on tiptoes up and down like a child gently chanting to Banbury Cross, “the movie isn’t just for Nelson, it’s for me, for working so hard all week.”

There was a question he was about to ask, but her caress erased it. She straightens, saying, “Hurry, Harry. The water will get cold.” Two damp spots are left on the front of his suntans. The muggy bathroom has drugged him; when she opens the door to their bedroom, the contrast of cold air cakes him; he sneezes. Yet he leaves the door open while he undresses so he can watch her dress. She is practiced, quick; rapidly as a snake shrugs forward over the sand she has tugged her black pantyhose up over her legs. She nips to the closet for her skirt, to the bureau for her blouse, the frilly silvery one, that he thought was reserved for parties. Testing the tub with his foot (too hot) he remembers.

“Hey Janice. Somebody said today your parents were in the Poconos. Last night you said your father was at the lot.”

She halts in the center of their bedroom, staring into the bathroom. Her dark eyes darken the more; she sees his big white body, his spreading slack gut, his uncircumcised member hanging boneless as a rooster comb from its blond roots. She sees her flying athlete grounded, cuckolded. She sees a large white man a knife would slice like lard. The angelic cold strength of his leaving her, the anticlimax of his coming back and clinging: there is something in the combination that she cannot forgive, that justifies her. Her eyes must burn on him, for he turns his back and begins to step into her water: his buttocks merge with her lover’s, she thinks how all men look innocent and vulnerable here, reverting to the baby they were. She says firmly, “They were in the Poconos but came back early. Mom always thinks at these resorts she’s being snubbed,” and without waiting for an answer to her lie runs downstairs.

While soaking in the pool tinged by her hair and blood Rabbit hears Nelson come into the house. Voices rise muffled through the ceiling. “What a crummy mini-bike,” the child announces. “It’s busted already.”

Janice says, “Then aren’t you glad it isn’t yours?”

“Yeah, but there’s a more expensive kind, really neat, a Gioconda, that Grandpa could get at discount for us so it wouldn’t cost any more than the cheap one.”

“Your father and I agree, two hundred dollars is too much for a toy.”

“It’s not a toy, Mom, it’s something I could really learn about engines on. And you can get a license and Daddy could drive it to work some days instead of taking a bus all the time.”