Jesse isn’t quite ready to go back to the motel. He’s all wound up and could use a drink. He and Edgar drive down Central Avenue. The street is clogged with cruisers, a slow-moving procession of greasers gunning cherry hot rods and high-school kids packed into sedans and lumbering station wagons borrowed from their parents. Every window is down, every radio is on, and a sticky-sweet Top 40 cacophony floats above the revving engines and car-to-car sass. “Take the Money and Run,” “Love Machine,” “Jive Talkin’”—Edgar knows all the songs and sings along.

They come to a bowling alley. That’ll do. Edgar likes to bowl, or try to anyway. Most of his throws end up in the gutter, but toppling even a few pins is enough to make him happy. Jesse rents shoes for him and helps him pick out a ball, then parks himself at the bar where he can keep an eye on his lane.

The girl tending bar asks what he’ll have. He starts to order a beer but is struck dumb. The bartender is the spitting image of Claudine, beautiful, doomed Claudine, dead, oh Christ, some seventy years now. The only woman he ever loved, the only woman he’ll ever love.

“Need a minute?” this bartender says.

Same skin the color of red-elm heartwood, same green eyes that shine as if lit from behind, same long, black hair, only not worn loose, but plaited into two braids that hang past her shoulders.

“I’ll have a Coors,” he manages to say.

“Jesse! Hey, Jesse!”

He turns to see Edgar pointing at five pins he’s downed and gives him the thumbs-up.

The girl sets a bottle in front of him. “Is that your friend?” she says.

“My brother,” he says. He keeps staring at Edgar so he doesn’t stare at her.

“Why aren’t you playing too?”

“He has more fun on his own.”

“Nah. You’re afraid he’ll beat you.”

Jesse smiles. Claudine liked to joke around too. He gathers himself and turns to face the girl.

“Ain’t you smart,” he says.

“And don’t you forget it.”

“What’s your name, smarty-pants?”

“Johona. It’s Navajo.”

“You’re an Indian?”

“My mom is. My dad’s Dutch.”

Claudine kept changing her story. Sometimes she was Spanish, sometimes French, sometimes a gypsy princess.

“How’d that happen?” Jesse asks Johona, talking about her parents.

“My dad came over here to study Indians,” Johona says. “He’s an archeologist. You know what that is?”

“Someone who studies old things,” Jesse says. “Ancient civilizations.”

“You’re pretty smart yourself,” Johona says. “What’s your name?”

“Jesse.”

“Pleased to meet you, Jesse.”