“Well, I just wanted to tell you I was sorry about last night. About the way I acted. I’d been drinking before I ever got over there and we—Sheila and Bonita and me—we’d been talking about Roland and me before we ever come over there.”

“Roland,” I say. “Your husband.”

“Right,” she says, seems happy to say it. “We been married eight years. We got two kids. You know the kids is the ones always suffers in something like this.”

“Yeah,” I say. Well, sure. Sure they do. “I guess so,” I say.

“I’m at home and I was thinking about last night. I mean, when we was out in the car and all. I was just upset. I didn’t mean to act like that.”

She’s talking like she did something wrong. But all she did was refuse to take her pants off. In a public parking lot. Where anybody could have walked up to the car and looked in, seen her in all her naked glory for free. I’m uneasy remembering this, my half-drunk horny stupidity. I could have gone too far. I’m not supposed to be in bars anyway.

“Well,” I say. “Hell. You don’t owe me any apology or anything. I mean. We just met. You know. Out in the car and all. … you don’t have to explain anything to me.”

“I feel like I ought to, though,” she says. “I was just wondering what you were gonna do tonight. I thought I’d see if you wanted to get a drink somewhere. If you’re not busy.” She lowers her voice. “I mean I liked it. In the car.”

I know now that I shouldn’t have tried that anyway. She just had me so turned on. …

I say, “You did, huh?” I’m seeing it again now, how the light played over her breasts, how they looked when I pushed her bra up.

“Well,” I say, “I don’t have anything planned.”

“Okay,” she says. She sounds glad she called. “You want to meet me somewhere?”

“Sure,” I say. “I guess so. Hell, we can drink a beer or something.”

“I’d really like to tell you why I acted the way I did last night, Jerry.”

“It’s Gary.”

“Right. Gary. I knew it was Gary. You want to go back out there? Where we were last night?”

I start to say no, let’s go someplace else, but she says, quickly, “It’s close to my house and all. I’ll have to get somebody to keep my kids and they know the number there if anything happens.”