“You have money?” she asked.

He told her no.

She would only watch then. She wouldn’t touch.

They met every day that summer, arranging by coded signals the exact time to arrive. Sharing this secret made him feel both powerful and vulnerable, powerful because he knew something that others didn’t know and vulnerable because it took just one person to make everyone know it.

Sylvia made him feel the same way.

He watched her more intently as the night went on, noticed little things about her, that she sucked her tongue, for example, when she was thinking, and cracked her neck when she felt pressured. Sylvia spoke with a subtle lisp, and on her chin was a shallow dimple, the lasting impression of a mother’s kiss. Intellectually, she was her man’s superior, but she mostly restrained herself. Fire saw it in her eyes, the way she pulled the shades down to make his light shine brighter.

“Oh come on, Lewis, Isabel runs away with Tristão because she wants happiness.” They had finished playing poker and were discussing John Updike’s Brazil, which Lewis was reading in paperback. “Why is that unrealistic? Because she is white and he is black? She is rich and he is poor? You can’t judge a novel by real life, Lewis. A novel is its own reality.” Sylvia looked at Claire for support. “She runs away with him at first to rebel against her family—because he’s forbidden, sexually and otherwise—not because she loves him. The love comes later, and that’s what carries the story—the lengths to which they go to preserve this love.” She glanced at the others, then settled on Lewis, who was unimpressed—which upset her. Why couldn’t he understand? Why was he so literal? “You might understand it better if you read The Romance of Tristan and Iseult by Bédier. Brazil is essentially the same story set in modern times.”

“I can’t imagine anyone doing that,” Lewis replied. “Have you ever heard of anyone doing that, Sylvia? Anyone you know?” He looked to Fire for reinforcement. “Why can’t novels be like real life? I don’t think that’s asking too much. I’m sure poor people would run away with rich people. But I don’t see many rich people sitting around waiting for the pauper with a bag of love.” He paused … seemed to remember something. “Well, maybe I’m speaking out of turn, because there’s this guy I went to Wharton with, Marcus Reid, brilliant guy—a shoo-in for senior vice presidency—until he ups and marries a word processor. I couldn’t believe it. He fucked his life in a single stroke.”

Ian sucked his teeth and opened another Guinness.

“How did he ruin his life?” Fire asked. He didn’t know enough about the business world to see the analogy.

“Well, for one, he stopped getting invited to the right places—where he’d meet the right people and make the right connections. His peers, and more importantly his bosses, considered him a loser. In any event, he might have actually preferred to stay away from certain situations, y’know. I’m sure his wife felt awkward whenever she was introduced to the kind of people she normally worked for. Bottom line: it just doesn’t look good.”