They had two more whiskies and left to go home. As they drove, he told her about his wife, the JAP of all time he called her, from Bronxville. They had two kids, a co-­op on lower Fifth Avenue. Ninth Street. One hundred acres of the Poconos, a dog, and two cars. He smiled and said he’d gotten one of the cars.

His voice was pleasant, she was high and tired, and she leaned back and just listened. At one point she thought of asking him if he knew anything about how clay fit in with cobblestone streets and crooked houses, but he was talking about his wife. Their divorce had only become final last week, and until then, he said, he’d been faithful except for one drunken night in Chicago where he’d picked up some tart in a bar. He actually said tart, and that struck Rachel as a kind word, better than slut or cunt or whore. Only a nice man, she thought, would call a bar girl a tart. She watched his profile, and that lovely silvery hair that came down the side of his face in short sideburns. He took her to his house, one of the most expensive in the Sutter section of Laurel, and from the moment he turned off the motor and lights and looked at her, the air was full of that sexual suspense that she hadn’t felt in years. That she’d forgotten existed.

“I thought we’d spend some time here,” he said.

She didn’t answer. She wanted to see the house, she told herself. After all, it probably went for two hundred twenty-­five thousand. It had a pool, a cabana, five bedrooms, four baths, a Florida room, a country kitchen. Golda would never forgive her if she didn’t at least look at the house.

The living room was empty except for a huge sectional sofa of soiled light-­colored velvet. As far as she could tell it was the only furniture in the place. Their voices echoed in the beautifully proportioned foyer; the dining room was empty. The fireplace was cold and unswept, with bottles of liquor lined up in it. The glasses he poured the Irish whisky into were dusty.

“I just moved,” he apologized. “And I wasn’t kidding, she did take everything.” When they finished the drink, he turned out the only lamp and in the moonlight he put his arms around her. She was sure she’d leave as soon as he tried to kiss her, but he rubbed his thumb against her bottom lip, which was unexpected, and Rachel felt a gut-turning excitement so intense she caught her breath. He heard her.