The next Saturday was cool and windy and they showed up at Colette’s boss’s beach house an hour after the party started, looking storm-tossed and alien. The party had already broken into islands of talkers who were busy ignoring the other groups floating over an expanse of aqua carpet. Colette cut loose from Paul and told him to mingle. She wanted to watch him to see if he would pick a fistfight or throw the piano player through a sliding door. She saw her manager across the room and headed over, hoping for interesting conversation. Soon she was listening to him talk about a recent takeover of a publishing house by a railroad. It was the same drone she had heard three times in the past week, and her spirits came down a notch as she wondered if these parties would net her anything more than tired talk passed around the way children toss beanbags at recess. She listened in to the other islands on her way to the bar, hearing snippets about business or sex, which were the same thing for most of the people she worked with. She drank one whiskey sour with her boss, Dirk, then felt the need for another, lingering at the bar and looking at all the talking going on, all the nothing being said. She also watched Paul hulk around and smile, exchanging single-word greetings, subsiding against an aquarium and staring at the air pump in the tank. Other men at the party were at ease and chatting freely. Chet told a complicated joke. Clint summarized a play. Paul studied the air conditioner’s thermostat as though it were abstract art.

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.