She turned to another sheet of music and stared at the title: “Firefly Dancing with a Moonbeam.” She pressed the soft pedal and began to play.

* * *

On the way to her apartment, Clarisse slid next to Paul and asked him to stop at the Church Key Lounge so she could buy herself a drink. He arched an eyebrow and looked at her. She was his wife’s first cousin. It would be like drinking with his sister. What could it hurt? He wasn’t sleepy, and the old, familiar, dangerous boredom had set in, so when they reached the dusty parking lot for the Church Key, he turned the wheel.

A five-piece band of middle-aged men called Boogielicious was thumping out some early sixties rock and roll for a few couples swinging in the black-light dark. Paul and Clarisse sat at the bar and drank two rounds. He scowled at the slicked-back musicians because he wanted to talk about what Colette had been telling Clarisse for the past week. Choosing not to scream out questions about his personal life, he sulked until the band took a break.

After a third drink Clarisse sank against the padded bar and smiled a slow and sticky smile. “Paul, you enjoy looking worried? Is it maybe a new sport?”

“Hey. This ain’t New Year’s Eve for me.”

Clarisse scooted back on her padded stool. She was big, bottom and top, but with a small waist. “Aw, Colette might take you back. It’s not like she’s never been pissed off at you before.”

He held up a finger at the bartender. “I don’t know.”

“Hey. Me, too.”

He looked at her empty glass and blinked. “You used to drinking sloe gin? You don’t maybe want to eat something to soak it up?”

Her head fell back limp. “Get me a couple pickled eggs and one of those weenies in vinegar.” She giggled when she said the word weenie.

A few new couples came in, blue-jeaned welders and cementers with their frizzy, bleached wives, and the place began to warm and fill with smoke. The bass player for Boogielicious strapped a guitar against his gut, thumbed a note, and frowned at the drummer, who rapped out the starting licks of “Jailbird.”

After the band had played two numbers and started on a third, slow piece, Clarisse slid off her stool, her dress bunched up and sticking to her behind. “Matilda, Matilda, I cried for you…” she sang. “Come on, T-Bub, let’s dance.”

He looked around for people who knew who he was, and saw, at least, no relatives. “Okay.”

Clarisse was clammy, sticky to the touch, but she could follow his movements like a shadow. He tried to keep a little daylight between them, but she was acting as though she would fall asleep in his arms. Her perfume grew salty and thick as steam. As soon as the band stopped the slow number, they hopped on an old jitterbug tune. Clarisse stuck an arm straight up, bent her knees out, and began moving her feet like windshield wipers. Paul jerked her into a double spin and they were off into the song like pinwheels. Clarisse’s dancing was fueled by sloe gin, her eyes half-closed in her round face, every part of her body powerful and unconsciously accurate in movement. Paul tested her with fast turns all through the song, and when the music stopped, they were panting like runners. After two more drinks, they were bopping again. He flung her out and she banged an old man off the dance floor. Paul felt the music flow into him like alcohol and Boogielicious got tight and hot like the room, the oily pompadours of the gray musicians lunging through the smoke. They danced one after another until Clarisse began to get out of control, straightening her arms too much, dropping a step, breathing with her mouth open. The band went on break, and she sidestepped to the bar, where she washed down another pickled sausage with a sloe gin fizz.