“No. She’s a friend of mine.”

“You ain’t got any friends.”

“You best behave yourself.”

“I know how to act,” Edgar says. He stands up straight, clicks his heels, and bows like someone he’s seen on television. “May I kiss your hand?” he says.

“No fucking around, I mean it,” Jesse says.

They wait for Johona in the parking lot, Jesse so nervous that he’s bouncing on his toes. Johona comes through the door, laughing and waving goodbye to someone inside.

“You’re here,” she says to Jesse, kidding like she thought he wouldn’t be.

“This is Edgar,” Jesse says. “Edgar, this is Johona.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Johona,” Edgar says. “You sure are pretty.”

They walk to the Grand Prix.

“You ride in back, let Johona up front,” Jesse says to Edgar.

“I got shotgun,” Edgar says. “I always got shotgun.”

“It’s cool,” Johona says. “I like riding in back.”

“He has the mind of a child,” Jesse says as he opens the door for her.

“Me too,” Johona says. “We’ll get along great.”

She directs Jesse to a Mexican restaurant that’s the last business hanging on in a dying strip mall, says it makes the best chimichangas in the world. The hostess seats them in an orange vinyl booth. A menagerie of piñatas hangs from the ceiling, and the Coors sign on the wall has a moving waterfall. Jesse and Johona order beers. Edgar wants one too, but Jesse says, “He’ll have a Coke.”

Johona talks nonstop, flitting from subject to subject so quickly that Jesse gets lost sometimes. When he does, he just smiles and nods, content to let her enthusiasm wash over him without worrying about keeping up. “You’ve never heard of Neil Young?” she says. He hasn’t, nor Led Zeppelin, Slaughterhouse Five, Charlie’s Angels, or any of the other things she chatters about. When she asks, “What TV shows do you watch?” he’s embarrassed not to have an answer.

“I like wrestling,” he says. “I see Dragnet sometimes. The Lone Ranger.”

“The Lone Ranger?” Johona says. “Okay, Pops.”

Edgar is pretending his straw wrapper is a snake, slithering it between the salt shaker and the basket of tortilla chips. He doesn’t like spicy food, so Jesse orders him a hamburger.

Johona moves on to stories about her friends—Tracy and Pam and Eddie and Carlos. One of them was busted for a joint, but his dad knew the judge and got him off. Another works at a drugstore where the pharmacist keeps cornering her in the back room and telling her he and his wife have an open marriage.

“He’s so gross,” Johona says. “He looks like Jackie Gleason. You know who that is, don’t you?”

Edgar pipes up with, “To the moon, Alice.”

Johona laughs and says to him, “Well, you know, anyway.”