Tension took over her body. Murray could feel what she suppressed. In protest, he broke free from her grip in terror, rocketing across the sofa. Unfortunately, a nervous Murray was a tinkling Murray, and he dribbled an erratic, golden trail across the white fabric before making a heroic leap from the armrest and splatting on the ground. Scarlett didn’t want to bring attention to the fact that there was dog pee next to her, because that is considered unsexy in most cultures, but it was impossible to hide against the snowy whiteness of the sofa. It didn’t help that Murray was making rapid, insane circuits of the room, his little nails acting like ice skates against the polished floor, sending him speeding and sliding and skidding into every single piece of furniture. Every blow just propelled him faster, bouncing him from kitchen bar to end table to desk to chair to potted plant, around and around.

Eric watched this with a detached, clinical interest.

“When did Amy get a dog?” he asked.

“He’s borrowed,” Scarlett said. “And he has issues. He has every issue.”

“Yeah, I can see that. We should get that out before it sets in.”

He was pointing at the yellow pee road next to Scarlett. He got off the bar stool and went into Mrs. Amberson’s tiny kitchen. Scarlett could hear him rummaging around, and a moment later he returned with a bottle of sparkling mineral water and a roll of unbleached paper towels. He calmly started drizzling the water on the spots and blotting them up with a paper towel.

“I should be doing that,” Scarlett said.

“I have four dogs back home,” he said. “I’m used to this. You city people, living in your fancy hotels, you don’t have to deal with animals like we country folks do.”

“You should see some of the things we do have to deal with,” Scarlett said. “Hotel guests make dogs seem really clean.”

He laughed a little.

Scarlett grabbed some towels and started on the opposite end of the sofa. She tried to work long and hard on her spot, holding her ground, but Eric was clipping along. Soon, he was next to her. His arm rubbed against hers. He didn’t seem to notice this, but it went on for almost a minute, this gentle brushing.

When she was trying to forget about Eric, she had to make an extra effort to erase the mental image of his arms. They were extraordinary arms—not gross, steroid big, but full and solid, just large enough to slightly strain the fabric of his shirt. They were even developed on the lower half, from the elbow to the hand, so that he had to have a really big watchband to make it all the way around his sturdy wrist. One day in a hot, empty theater, those arms had lifted her up like she was nothing at all.