“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.”

He took a sip and made a face. “Hell, I can talk to a Jehovah’s Witness and enjoy it.”

“You’re not scared of making a faux pas?”

He gave the room a quick sweep with his eyes. “I’m not related to any of these quarter-rolling fools. They can think what they want.”

Colette took a long swallow of her drink. “You don’t have to call them names.”

“I can’t call the guy who felt you up anything? In Tiger Island you’d have given him a high heel in the throat.” He shook his head and looked at the floor. “I guess you’re playing by California rules now.”

She said nothing because she could only have praised him for holding back.