“Look at this.” They’re in the produce department. “You can get salad in a bag.”

“Well, yeah? How long has it been since you’ve been grocery shopping?”

“Hey!” He turns to show her a small tray of tuna maki. “Right in the grocery store.”

“They have sushi everywhere now. I saw some in Walgreens the other day. Pretty soon it’ll be in vending machines. Convenience marts in the desert. It’s kind of frightening. I mean, it is fish. It came out of water somewhere, sometime, and it’s still raw.”

She’s slightly embarrassed to be out with him. When she first knew him, he was a sharp dresser. An excellent hunter-gatherer in thrift shops. When the money started pouring in, he switched without a beat to shopping on Oak Street. Now, though, he hardly ever wears anything but shapeless garments. If she didn’t know him and just saw him for the first time right now in putty yoga pants and a sand-colored tunic, she’d guess: alternative-medicine practitioner. Specialist in cranial-sacral therapy.

At the checkout he’s fascinated by the small bottles of energy boosters. “What do you think happens after the five hours? I guess you’d want to make sure you weren’t still on the icy highway in your big rig. You’d want to make sure you were already tucked in at the roadside motel.”

“Maybe a glass of wine?” She nods at the pretentious in-store piano bar, but she can see he’s done.

“Probably better to head back now,” he says, looking a little sweaty.