He calmed down, and we agreed to go to a diner rather than say goodbye with our fight still fizzing in the air around us. We sat side by side in a booth, his thigh pressed against mine, the fan spinning above us as a drunk-looking man put nickels in a jukebox. We sat in the booth for hours, just to be beside each other. I can’t remember what we talked about but I knew that we could talk forever, that hearing his slow deliberate way of speaking, watching the smile begin to crinkle the corners of his eyes, would never grow old.

He walked me home when the sky was the old-penny colour of early dawn, the keenest of the sparrows chittering in the trees. My feet ached and my head felt light from too much coffee but still I didn’t want the feeling of his hand on my waist to go away, for him to go away. I thought of ways to sneak him into my room. I thought of slipping in myself and unlocking the back door, telling him where to find the gate. But then I pictured Roy on the floor at Mrs Mulligan’s, his pants around his ankles. Instead I stood on my aching toes when Jim bent down to kiss me where the front lawn began, while the dark house still slept.

Jim breathed a sigh when we parted. ‘I’m tired, but I don’t think I’ll sleep,’ he said.

‘Me neither.’

‘I’ll come on the weekend. What’s your day off?’

‘Sunday.’ I turned to walk up the path to the front door of the house, and when I turned the key and opened the door I looked back to see him standing there, still watching me, and raised a hand in farewell. He did the same, his silhouette hazy in that half light of the beginning day.

•

Next Sunday we hired bicycles at the tidal basin and rode around the monuments of the city, across the flat stretch of the Mall and circling the obelisk of the Washington Monument. It was August, and our clothes stuck to our skin with sweat, the handlebars of the bicycle slippery. The heat was swampy, thick like egg cream, bordering on sweet. My straw hat kept the sun from my face but my arms were turning red and finally we collapsed beneath a tree beside the basin. Children were swimming in the muddy water. I thought of the surf back home, the way my skin felt cool to the touch after swimming at the beach. I would never find that here.

‘What’s going on in that head of yours?’ Jim said, fanning himself with his hat. His whole shirt was dark with sweat, and there were splotches of red on his face.

‘Did you swim in Sydney?’

‘Did I ever. Those were some beaches.’

‘Where did you go?’