“Maybe,” he said. Then he jumped out of bed and went to his sea bag, taking out a small oilskin pouch and bringing it back to her. “Open it,” he said. She drew two rings from the pouch.

“I’d pawned them,” he said. “Years ago. But I kept up the interest. They belonged to my mother. We’ll get married, Annie.”

The gold band didn’t fit, but the one with the three sapphires slid over her small finger.

“She was little?”

“Normal-sized,” he said. “Not a giant like you.” He lay down on top of her. “A giant dummy,” he said.

She slid out from under him and pushed him away.

“Married?” Was that what he’d had in mind all along? Because of these days they had lived together? Had it been a kind of test? But married? She could not think why. In movies, young people held hands and dreamed of the house furnishings that would someday be theirs. Brides wore white gowns, in order, her father had said, to celebrate their deflowering. What she needed was a pair of new shoes.

“We’d better,” he said, as though speaking of medicine.

He had some other surprises in store for her that week. She came home to find him dangling a car key from one of her bobby pins. He took her down to the street, to a 1937 Chevrolet convertible. The leather was cracked, the fenders dented.

“You drive,” he commanded.

She did. “Who taught you?” he asked.

“My father.”

“I’m going to reteach you. Don’t ride the clutch to start with.” They went for several miles. He said her father must drive like a fool.

When they got back in the room, he told her he’d been to the shipping-line office that day. They’d only paid him enough to buy the car, a hundred and twenty-five dollars. Then he started to laugh.

“You should see your expression!” he cried. “Oh! There’s no point in teasing you.” And reaching into his pants pocket, he took out handfuls of money and tossed the bills at her. Money rustled down her skirt, settled on her lap and thighs. “Buy some clothes, for God’s sake,” he said.

She held handfuls of money, in a voluptuous trance that made her limbs soften. “There’s so much,” she murmured.

“Not much,” he contradicted.

She got off early the next day from work, telling the manager she was sick, about to faint, about to throw up…The manager glared, but let her go. She went to meet Walter in a department store on Hollywood Boulevard.