“I feel like I’m your girlfriend. A man makes a pass at you and you don’t want me to be upset, you want advice. A girlfriend gives advice. A husband would go down and put that slug’s dick in a pipe threader. But I can’t do that. All I can do is ride around with you like a pet hound with his tongue hanging out.”

She pouted up at him. “You smell like coal oil, you know that?”

He jumped up and unzipped his coveralls, heading for the bathroom. “Jeez, I got to smell like a rose to give advice.”

She called after him. “I didn’t mean you had to take a bath. You just don’t want to sit on furniture smelling like that. It’ll stay in the fabric forever.” When she heard him slam the door, she got up and fixed herself a double with cracked ice in a tall tumbler. A letter was open on the counter and she saw that it was from Paul’s father. Scanning it greedily, she saw that the oil industry was drying up in Louisiana. Most of the fabrication yards in Tiger Island, the tool suppliers, the mud-boat operations, they’d closed up and sent their workers packing. It was a long letter telling of many little disasters, ending with the fact that LeBlanc’s had closed down when the Gruenwald turned turtle at the machine shop’s landing, pulling the dock apart when she went down. There were news clippings with the letter and she read these, too, until she had drained her glass. Paul came in, barefoot, in jeans and a denim shirt. He got himself a beer and fixed her another drink. “You figure out what to do about your boss?” he asked.

She went into the living room and sat on the sofa, sniffing it. “I’ll just have to dance around him like I’ve been doing. I’ll just tell myself that everyone else wants to have sex with me, so he’s normal.”

Paul sat next to her. “I don’t want to have sex with you.”

“It’s a good thing.” She took a drink.

“I want to make love with you.”

Colette drew in a deep breath and leaned slowly into him. “You bastard, you’ve still got some good timing left.”

He touched her hair with an open palm. “I’ve been out here for months, Colette. I’ve given up my life to follow you here. I’ve stayed away from you when it wasn’t easy to.”

“It’s good that you stayed away.” She looked around the room. “You’ve learned to keep house living by yourself. I bet you learned a lot.”

“Safe bet. If I had a lawn, I’d cut it.”

Colette emptied her glass and muted a burp. “You miss me at night?”

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

“Man,” she said, “oh, man.”