Dirk, the vice-president for investments, came up from behind and pinched her. She brought her angry face around quickly, but when she saw who it was, she changed her expression. “Up to your old tricks with the girls?” she asked, waving a finger at him stupidly. She wanted to throw the drink in his face.

“You know I only have eyes for you, beautiful,” he told her, handing her a martini. She took a drink and looked at the wrinkles around his eyes. She tried to guess his age, but he was like a facade at Disneyland—new and old at the same time. “Say,” he said, “why don’t we go for a walk on the beach and discuss the Pendleton portfolio?”

“We could do that right here.” She kept her voice soft, the way the other women talked when they were around him.

“But we could have the discussion in better style.” He winked.

“Uh-huh. See me Monday at the office.” She gave him a careful smile, confident that she could fend him off yet again. She was experienced with him already.

“Who’d you come with?” He motioned toward Paul, spilling a little of his own martini.

“Just a friend from home,” she said a little too loudly. “I’d better check on him.” She walked over and sat next to her husband, who was talking with the pretty blonde from programming. She was telling him about her grandfather who had been a blacksmith. At the end of the story, when the woman got up for a drink, Colette caught his eye. “You making friends?”

“Not like you, babe.” He made a pinching motion with his hand.

She blushed and swallowed twice, then took a drink. “And you didn’t mash his head with the piano lid?”

“Hey, I got a tweed jacket. People with tweed jackets don’t get upset about a little butt-feeling, even if the butt that got felt does belong to their wife.”

“Hush up.” She looked away. “I see you still like blondes.”

“I know you don’t believe that crap Clarisse told you.”

“You’re a man,” she said, as though that explained all the evil in the world.

“It would take more than a big-ass dummy like Clarisse to make me cheat.”

Colette crossed her legs. “You didn’t even kiss her?”

“I been out with drunk women before and I can tell when they’re fixing to blow.”

She laughed. “So the only reason you didn’t kiss her was you were afraid of getting a mouthful of puke?”

“Not the only reason.”

She seemed to think about this a long time. “What about the programmer you were just talking to? What if she hit on you?”

“Don’t worry, babe. These are nicer people than you think. The little blonde just wanted to talk about anvils, and that bald dude who makes life miserable for the tellers has a ’49 Chevy he takes apart every weekend.”

“Well”—she snagged a martini for each of them from a tray that was going around the room—“I guess you think you fit in pretty well.”