“Do you?” He put an arm lightly on her shoulder.

“Man,” she said, “oh, man.”

“You still on the pill?”

“Yeah. They’re like using snow tires in the desert.” She put her head back on his shoulder and looked at him. “But you never can tell.”

“Ah, Colette, let’s tell.”

They kissed and five minutes later they were in his bedroom. For both of them it was like dancing to silky-good soft music, using all the moves and steps they’d learned by heart. And after a long time, at sundown, they went out on his little terrace and watched the sun disappear into the smoggy hills on the west of the tile-roofed neighborhood. They drank strong coffee and ate aspirin, deliberately not talking, not knowing what to say, both of them amazed at what had happened.

Finally, Colette asked, “Is California a funny place or what?”

Paul watched the orange sky and shrugged. “Remember in history class we heard about those English explorers who brought an Indian to London?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, sometimes I feel like that Indian.”

Colette nodded. “You’re one of a kind all right.” She looked into her coffee cup until she could see a clear image. She blinked. “Wow, that tequila’s still got me.”

“Colette.”

“What?”

“If you come back, I’ll never go dancing without you.”

She giggled. “And what about your accordion?”

“It’s in the pawnshop on River Street right now.”

She looked at him, her eyes wide. “You sold it?” She pictured the inlaid, chrome-buttoned windstorm sitting on a shelf with used televisions, a price tag on one of its stop knobs. “I can’t believe that. Do you miss it?”

His coffee had turned cold, so he threw it over the rail. “No.”

“Do you miss anything?”

“Yeah,” he admitted, because he knew she could smell a lie from half a parish away. “Mammas and daddys. Aunts and uncles.”

She got up and sat on his hard thighs. “You miss hearing the whistles.”

He could not believe the touch of her, and he stared at a patch of skin under her throat. “Don’t miss the mosquitoes, though.”

She put her nose in his ear and he could smell the hot snap of tequila. “How about the red bugs?” she asked.

“Pas du tout.”

“Et les écrevisses?”

He sighed. “Tout le temps.”

“Et Nelson Orville et son accordion?”

“Un ’tit peu. Et toi?”

“A little. But I wish he could sing better.”

They talked until past dark, argued a little, kissed, then Colette told him she was going to her apartment. At the door she told him that they were now officially dating.

“Dating,” Paul repeated. “You want my high school ring?”

“Hey, don’t start.”

“You want me to ask your daddy if we can stay out past twelve?” He put his hands in his pockets and rocked on his bare feet.

“Hey, man, between boilers, give me a ring.”

The next morning she noticed that the Mercedes’s silver paint was dusty, coated with a smoggy road film. She started it and it clattered and stank in the closed-in parking area. On her way to the bank she wondered how long twenty years lasted. The following evening, she sat down to write a letter to her mother, tearing up five different beginning pages. She called Paul and asked him how to begin.