The party began to thin out after midnight, and Colette was getting sleepy from the drinks and bloated from the cocktail sausages that languished in bowls of tomato sauce around the room. She became angry with a male teller who made fun of her Cajun accent, and Paul had to put a finger in the belt loop of her linen trousers to pull her away from behind. He said good-bye to her boss and got her out into the night air.

“Beach boy bastard,” she said. “At least I didn’t learn to talk from a television.”

Paul took her home and steered her up to her apartment. He waited until she unlocked her door. “You all right?”

“Yes, I’m all right. I just had one too many.” She looked him in the eye. “And you’re not coming inside.”

“It would ruin your reputation for your husband to come in your place, that right?”

She put a hand against the door frame. “No. I just don’t feel well right now.”

“You still get heartburn?”

“I got it now.” She put a hand on her stomach.

“Me, too. Can you get me a couple of your chewables? I don’t have anything at my place.”

“Here,” she said, “I’ve got some in my purse. Oh, man, those little weenies are about to kill me.”

He took the roll from her and peeled out two tablets. “And those damned drinks. What’d they put in them?”

“Vermouth.”

“Tastes like lacquer thinner,” he said. “We used to thin gasket compound with something like vermouth down at LeBlanc’s.”

She looked into her apartment. “I hope you don’t expect a good-night kiss.”

“Not on your life. You look like you’re ready to throw up all over my tweed jacket.”

She went in and closed the door but for a crack, watching him through it. “I don’t know if this date was a good idea.”

He turned his head sideways. “I enjoyed it. I felt like a dollar sparkler.” Then he turned and left.

She went in and ate three antacid tablets, drank a glass of water filled with finely crushed ice, and slowly chewed four soda crackers. She looked at her reflection in the black sliding glass door and thought about three things: her next paycheck, a promotion already looming, and the eroded landscape of her boss’s face.

*   *   *

For Paul, the weeks passed like loaded oyster luggers going against the current. He fell into the rhythm of inspecting tourist-railroad steam locomotives and obsolete laundry boilers, going through the drill of checking for leaking flues, bulged water legs, cracks in the shell plates. At dawn, he would get up with no boat whistles to listen to, hearing only the muted breath of the central air conditioning. He began to write letters, wanting to touch someone back home with his words, even writing to Etienne the giant, telling him about the money, the lacquered and tanned people.