Time devours memories, gnaws the meat off them and crunches the bones. Jesse’s always considered this a blessing. Better to be focused on the here and now when you’re forever on the hunt, forever being hunted. Better not to be daydreaming about Mama’s peach pie or a departed lover’s touch. But maybe he’s been wrong. Because tonight, for the first time in a long while, he doesn’t wish he was dead. In fact, after spending hours caught up in the torrent of reminiscence, he felt as if a crust of mud that’d been weighing him down had cracked and fallen away. That’s why, as soon as the sun set, he roused Edgar and said, “Let’s go back to that place we were last night.”

Johona was behind the bar, as he’d hoped. “Howdy, stranger,” she said, and he’d be damned if she didn’t even have the beauty mark on her lip Claudine had. He set Edgar up in front of the game and went back to the bar and ordered a beer. Johona’s been busy ever since, however. The place is packed, and there are drinks to be poured, jokes to be laughed at. Jesse doesn’t mind. It’s a thrill watching her scoop ice, watching her make change.

She stops by whenever she gets a chance, sighs and says, “You good?” and, “I’m about to lose my voice, screaming over all this noise.” She lights a cigarette, takes two quick puffs, and stubs it out in an ashtray with a conspiratorial wink. She shakes her hips to the beat of a song and glances over to make sure he saw. When her hand brushes his, time collapses in on itself, old feelings and new crashing head-on.

At ten she slaps the bar and says, “So where are we going?”

“What do you mean?” Jesse says.

“I’m off,” she says. “Where you taking me? And don’t you dare say another bar.”

Jesse hesitates. He should end this flirtation now. As much as he’s drawn to the girl, going any further will only be courting trouble. Nothing good ever comes of the turned consorting with the unturned. But then she smiles Claudine’s smile again, and a worry she’s misread him ripples across her face, and in the second between the needle of the jukebox dropping onto a record and the song starting to play, he throws caution to the wind.

“Are you hungry?” he asks.

“Always,” she replies.

“I’ve got my brother with me.”

“He can chaperone. Meet me in the parking lot in ten minutes.”

Edgar’s run out of quarters and so is pretending to play the pinball machine, making sounds with his mouth. He whines about having to leave but brightens at the mention of food.

“Now, listen. There’s a girl coming with us,” Jesse tells him.

“You gonna feed?” Edgar says.