“Let’s go outside and get some air,” Paul told her at last, gathering in her damp waist and propelling her to the door. The smokeless atmosphere was a shock. Inside the lounge, everything was loud and spinning and they were part of the large organism of the dance. Outside, the air was like syrup, and Paul stood in the gravel under a yellow bug light, trying to think of something to say. He wagged his head as though trying to shake water from his hair. “Man, that was a workout.”

Clarisse gave him one of her slow smiles. “You sted nuff,” she told him.

“What?” He looked into her pale green eyes.

“Sif langs labial.”

“Aw, Jeez, Clarisse. You ain’t even here anymore.” He grabbed her upper arm, scared that she would go down at any moment. Clarisse looked up at him with the most open, trusting, adventurous face he’d ever seen on a woman, her eyes filmed over with romance. “Hey,” he told her. “Don’t look at me like that. You having some kind of estrogen tornado inside or what?”

“Pal,” she said, “lesko fride nadark.”

“Whatever. Time to go home.” He pushed her toward his truck, his own steps a little sideways and creaky, though he had drunk only beer. The truck pulsed and vibrated under a flickering mercury-vapor light. Clarisse grabbed three times for the door handle, and he had to boost her rear into the high seat. When he climbed into the driver’s side, she put an arm beside him and once again turned a dreamy, eager face to his. “Straighten up, now,” he said. Paul was ashamed that he enjoyed the heat of her, the kind of rounded-off, well-padded fun of her, and he quickly started the truck. But before he put it in gear, he turned for one last slow look at her face, which was still half-smiling and shiny with dance, a little cross-eyed from all the twisting steps, soft, and a bit too pale, maybe too shiny, her mouth open as if she was trying to figure out how a mouth worked. “Erik ohms,” she said.

“Oh no,” he yelled, his dizzy butt dancing on the suddenly electrified upholstery.

* * *

The next morning, he was taking his truck apart on his parents’ front lawn, had the front bench seat out on the grass, and was working carefully with towels, a bucket of pine oil, and two cans of Lysol. There was a sour pond on his dashboard, little bits of vinegar sausage in his tape deck, an egg yolk—colored mist gumming up the little pill-shaped buttons of his radio. With screwdrivers and pliers, he removed his air-conditioning vents, which were awash with acid-fried bits of Slim Jim, milky pink sloe gin, and crab meat. On the complex dashboard, every control lever, fan switch, digital readout, and seam gave off a clabbered, alcoholic, sun-tortured vapor.

He had pulled out the carpet and was giving it a vigorous hosing when Father Clemmons, a middle-aged priest, stopped on the oak-shaded sidewalk and called to him. Paul had spotted him first but had pretended not to see him.