He’d given up red meat for six years now, but like most of his actions, had not in fact declared it. With a few exceptions, he was wary of definitions, not because he was indecisive or undisciplined, but because he believed that bearings were more important than boundaries. Instead of definitions he preferred guidelines—points of departure that gave him the confidence to range across borders without losing his way.

Feijoada. He stared into the eyes of the soft black beans and smelled the garlic sweat of cow tongue and salt pork, and thought of the women of Salvador, their skins as smooth as banana leaves, spicing their pots on Sundays with cheap cuts and scrap meat as they’ve done since the days of slavery. A little pork wouldn’t kill him, he thought. But then it might. He replaced the feijoada in the fridge. On the edge of his focus, footsteps came closer and a voice called out: “Excuse me, could you give me a hand?”

He straightened up, and turned around. Standing before him with one arm along the door frame and the other weighed down by a shopping bag was the woman in the navy blazer, backlit from the hall, her skin shining like an almond glaze, her lips trembling like beds of earth about to burst with seed.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “This is so embarrassing. I didn’t expect to see you of all people here … and I … and I’m … I’m …”

“You are …?”

She leaned backward through the doorway and glanced left and right.

“Sylvia,” she said, her brows furrowed deeply. “Sylvia Lucas.”

“Adrian. Adrian Heath. But people call me Fire.”

She rested the bag on the floor, and gazed at him, slicing wide arcs across his body, trying to dissect him.

“Where’d you get your buttons?” He was thinking now of all that he’d heard about her.

She told him, as she rested the bag on the other side of the room, that they were not the originals but details she’d added on her own.

“I’m sorry to put you through this,” he said as she unpacked. “You didn’t want to see me again. But we both keep bad company.”

“It’s okay.” She turned her back to him.

“I’d like to give you my number,” he said, driven by the momentum of habit, “so you can call to arrange another coincidence.” He was sure now that nothing would happen. He’d already met her man.

“I shouldn’t take it,” she said without looking. “I’m never going to use it.”

“That’s okay. Paper is cheap. And you won’t have to give me yours. We will only be in touch at your convenience.”

She turned around, puffed her cheeks, and began to crease the paper bag against her body, working in the deliberate order of measuring, scoring, and folding.

“I think we should go,” she said when the bag was the size of a change purse.

He held his number out to her. “Take it,” he said softly. “There is nothing to fear.” He wagged his head when he said this, and closed his eyes in a languid blink that calmed her like a soothing fan and made her want to trust him with his muddy boots and knotted hair and basic Timex watch. She liked his mouth. It made her think of her clit as a shrimp in butter sauce.