They switch seats. The shift is satin smooth. At a certain point she doesn’t need the clutch, and rests her left foot on the rubber mat. She’s proud she can still do this. But she can only make it happen with a car like this one, on an open stretch of road like this one; in the city she can’t hear the engine over all the ambient roar, can’t find enough of a straightaway, plus she drives a small, utilitarian SUV.

Her father is an elegant man. He dresses like a golfer from the 1950s. Pants that sigh into light drapes on the tops of his feet. Shoes in pale leathers. His eyes, like Cate’s, have light blue irises. They share the same pale complexion, and sharp, narrow nose. His hair is also like Cate’s—black and dense. He used to comb it straight back off his face. Recently, though, there is more forehead, less hair, and he now sweeps what’s still there into a forelock. People would know at first glance that they are father and daughter. She likes this.

He came here to Puebla for the job of his dreams: he picks colors for cars, interiors and exteriors. When he and Ricky met at art school, he was a painting student. He is excruciatingly sensitive to color, also has an impressive memory in this realm. He can match perfectly something here and now to something far back, or to the underside of a leaf in a floral-patterned sofa pillow in a home he has visited only once. As they walked around Puebla’s zocalo yesterday, he showed off a little by pinning down the Pantone chip colors of the extremely vibrant churches. 17-1664. 14-0995. Like that.

Today they drove out of the city to the pre-Columbian pyramid at Cholula. He had to rest briefly as they climbed the million stone steps, the first time Cate has thought of him as old, as opposed to just older than she is.

Now they are heading out into the countryside, to a scruffy bar he likes.

She asks, as she always does, “How safe are we out here, alone on the road? I mean, I haven’t noticed many other cars.” Cate is thinking of photos she sees regularly in the news. Homemade Mad Max highway tanks with revolving turrets. Dead women hanging in a neat row on the side of a building, their legs still encased in skinny jeans, feet in bright sneakers.