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Timothy saw her –
there
– in the back, with a group of men and women surrounding her like drones around the queen bee. One of the faces was familiar: Jay Strauss, the Kid, and for the first time Timothy realized something that had escaped him until that moment: that the Kid was infatuated with Tricia. Timothy could tell from the way he was smiling at her, the near rigor mortis on his face, the forced laughter when she spoke. He was hopelessly in love.

When Timothy strode halfway across the room, Tricia saw him. Her reaction was exactly what Timothy had hoped. She opened her mouth, smiled, and waved her hand. She said something excitedly to the kids around her. Jay looked up. His face dropped momentarily, and then he too smiled – a forced, pained smile.

‘Timothy!' Tricia called.

Timothy approached their table. ‘Hello, ladies and gents.'

‘Awesome! You made it!' Tricia said. ‘Everyone, this is Timothy, my boss. Excuse me, Mr. Van Bender.'

‘Call me Timothy,' he said.

Tricia introduced her drones. ‘This is Rachel,' she said, pointing to an overweight brunette with huge breasts, wearing a sundress. ‘And this is Jack,' she said, pointing to a young man with curly hair and wire-rimmed glasses. Jack waved. ‘And of course you know Jay.'

‘Of course I know Jay,' said Timothy.

‘Hi, Timothy,' Jay said, deflated. He couldn't hide his disappointment; his boss had arrived.

‘Hi, Kid,' Timothy said, and then thought better of it. The
decent thing to do, when around his peers, would be to call him by his real name. ‘Hi, Jay,' he said again.

Jay nodded.

‘We were just talking,' Tricia said, ‘about work.' She gestured to the table behind Timothy. ‘There,' she said, ‘pull up a chair.'

Timothy slid an oak armchair from the table nearby. He sat down across from Tricia, who was perched in the center of the overstuffed red felt settee, with Jack and Rachel on each side. Poor Jay could barely squeeze on the small couch; his thigh rested precariously on the edge. ‘Anyway,' she continued, ‘everyone was saying how they hated their jobs, and how their bosses were total loads … except for me, of course.'

Jay said, ‘And me.'

Timothy ignored him. To Tricia he said: ‘You don't say.'

‘I was telling everyone how great my boss was. Then, who should walk in, but my boss!' She smiled. ‘What's the chance of that?'

‘Slim, I'd say.'

‘Slim,' she agreed.

A waitress came to take drink orders. Timothy ordered Dalmore on the rocks. Tricia ordered a second Cosmopolitan, though she had not finished her first. Rachel, Jack, and the Kid ordered beers.

‘I just happened to be driving by,' Timothy said, continuing their game. ‘I hope I'm not intruding.' He looked at Tricia. He tried to figure out what was different about her since he had seen her that afternoon. She wore the same tight red pants, the same snug black turtleneck. Perhaps it was that she now wore lipstick, a dark ochre, the color of blood on sand.

Then he realized: her glasses. She was not wearing the black-framed librarian spectacles. Did she trade her glasses for contact lenses when she went out at night? Or were the glasses just a fashion accessory – a non-prescription prop? How many people, Timothy wondered, wore fake glasses if they had perfect eyesight?

Rachel, the girl in the sundress, said, ‘So what do you do, Timothy? Tricia is always so vague about her job.'

Tricia laughed. ‘I told these guys, I don't even
know
what you do!' She said it proudly, stupidly, and it made Timothy cringe. Why were pretty girls so dumb? What kind of society do we live in, when someone intellectually incurious can flit through life easily, simply because she has a tight body and the face of Venus?

‘What I do,' Timothy said, ‘is manage money. Rich people give me one hundred dollars, and a year later, I give them back a hundred and twenty.'

Tricia piped up, tried to help Timothy impress her friends: ‘But they give you more than a hundred dollars, right?'

Timothy exchanged a pained look with the Kid.

‘Well, that's right,' Timothy said. ‘We're talking about millions of dollars. A hundred million dollars, actually.'

‘Cool,' said Jack, the curly-haired kid with the glasses. He had the shaggy amiability of someone who had done his part to support the Mexican economy by smoking a lot of pot. ‘A hundred million dollars. That's a lot.'

‘You see?' Tricia said to her friends. ‘Isn't he the coolest boss? Out here drinking with us? On a school night? Awesome!' She reached across and put her hand on Timothy's thigh. She left it there. Timothy felt that old familiar stir: an erection. God, she was good looking, Timothy thought. Those blue eyes, the red lipstick, the tight shirt. Her hand crept up his thigh a bit. Now it was a few inches from his crotch. He dared not look down, to see her young fingers on his slacks. If he looked, he would be forced to admit what was happening. Until then, it could be a simple misunderstanding: Oh, was your hand on my penis? I hadn't noticed.

‘I work with Timothy, too,' the Kid said. Timothy thought: God, you're hopeless. He made a mental note to take the Kid aside, give him some pointers about how to impress women. The Kid would need to lose this particular contest over Tricia, of course, but once this was over, Timothy could spare honest advice. The Kid would have money some day, Timothy thought, no doubt about it. He was bright, and a bit of a shark. As his mentor, Timothy owed him. He should help ease the Kid's entry
into his world, the world where money always let you win. But not tonight.

Timothy glanced around the room one more time. He peered into the darkness, tried to make out the faces at the bar, at the tables around him. Was there anyone familiar? Any friend of Katherine's? Anyone from the club? Anyone from church? It was unlikely, since this was a young person's place, and his friends were no longer young. But he had to be sure.

Satisfied, Timothy said, ‘I wonder where those drinks are.' He stood from his chair, made a show of looking for the waitress. Then he sat back down, and, as he did, pulled his chair closer to Tricia, so that he sat nearly between her legs. She spread them wider, reached over, guided his chair closer. Now his knees rested on the inside of her thighs. Timothy took her hand within his. Her skin was soft and dry, her fingers cold. She intertwined her fingers in his. And then he knew that he would have her, that she was his, and that money always let you win.

Her friends left, one by one. First, the Kid, who skulked off muttering cursory goodbyes. The stoner, Jack, stood up five minutes later and said, ‘I gotta go.' Tricia didn't argue. Jack vacated the seat beside Tricia on the settee. Tricia pulled Timothy's hand and guided him to sit down beside her. He fell backwards into the sofa. She pushed up against him, snuggled into his side. He felt her breast against his shirt.

Rachel looked uncomfortable. ‘Well,' she said, ‘I should head out.'

‘Okay,' Tricia said.

Rachel leaned over, pressed her cheek to Tricia's, kissed the air. ‘Good luck,' she said. Then, to Timothy: ‘It was nice to meet you.'

‘And you.' Timothy had his arm around Tricia's shoulder. He could smell her shampoo, lemon and rosemary, and he felt her hair, like silk, under his chin.

When Rachel left, they sat together, still. The bar was full now, packed with kids blowing off steam after work, and getting
louder. A bunch of beefy boys in baseball caps gathered around the snooker table, shouting.

‘Well, this is interesting,' Timothy said.

But she was not the type to engage in self-reflection. ‘Come home with me,' she said.

‘Okay.' He stood up, opened his wallet, and threw a hundred dollar-bill on the table. They left the bar and walked out into the night.

They each drove their own car; he followed her yellow Celica.

He tailed her out of the BBC parking lot onto Ravenswood Drive, and then along Middlefield and Willow – until he was back on Highway 101. They traveled south for twenty minutes. Palo Alto was the zenith of real estate value on the Peninsula; it was – literally – downhill from there. Each mile south on 101 knocked another ten thousand dollars off the median home price and, as he drove, the houses along the highway changed, from red Spanish bungalows and sprawling ranches, to white clapboard houses, to concrete slab apartments built over open carports. Finally, she took Route 85, the corridor that carried the secretaries and personal assistants and firemen and police into and out of Palo Alto each morning and night – the renal artery of the Peninsula.

She pulled off the highway onto surface streets. He followed her down Stevens Creek Boulevard, where all evidence of a namesake creek had disappeared long ago beneath asphalt used car lots, balloons, and neon signs promising nought percent APR. Off Stevens Creek, she turned left and then right, until Timothy was sure he was lost and would never find his way home.

Finally, she pulled over to the side of a tree-lined street and stopped her car. He parked behind her and got out.

‘Here we are,' she said, indicating an old yellow four-plex across the street. Two balconies had black charcoal grills; a third, a scrawny orange tree in a clay pot.

‘Cute,' he said.

‘A little different than what you're used to, I bet,' she said.

‘Pretty much like where I started out,' he lied.

She led him up two flights of concrete stairs. He followed close behind and stared at her ass as they climbed. The stairs stopped at her apartment door, which was marked with a cheap plastic letter D. The top nail holding the D in place was missing, so the letter had flipped upside down. She took her keys from her purse and jingled them until she found the right one. She turned the lock, giving the door a shove with her shoulder. It didn't budge. ‘Always sticks,' she said. After another shove, the door opened and they walked inside. She turned on the light.

It was much cleaner than the exterior had led him to expect. Plush medium-pile brown carpet, newly painted white stucco walls. An air conditioner in the window was going full blast, so the living room was icy. A sliding glass door led to a patio. Near the apartment entrance there was a small galley kitchen, with clean pots on the stove.

‘Nice,' he said.

He saw her looking around the apartment. What was she looking for?

A thought occurred to him. ‘Do you live alone?'

‘Most of the time,' she said vaguely. She seemed nervous. Perhaps she had not left the air conditioner on when she left in the morning. In which case, he wondered, who had?

‘Come into my bedroom,' she said.

‘You sure?'

She took his hand and led him around the corner into the bedroom. The bed was made neatly, a blue denim duvet pulled snugly under the mattress. Why had she made the bed? Was she expecting him as early as this morning, when she left for work? Had she known even then that he would return with her?

She closed the bedroom door, turned the lock.

The bedroom was small, unremarkable. A beechwood table, probably from IKEA, was pushed against the far wall, with a computer on top. On the table, and on her bureaus, there were no photographs, no mementos.

‘How long have you lived here?' he asked.

She pushed herself into his chest, pulled him down by the neck
and kissed him. He felt her ochre lipstick rubbing off onto his lips.

‘Do you really care?' she said, all breath and silky hair. Her mouth smelled like mint and Triple Sec. She kissed him again, pushing her tongue into his mouth. Her kiss was hard, violent. He felt her teeth under her lips. Her hand stroked his thigh and worked its way up his pants leg. She grabbed his penis. ‘I've been wanting to fuck you since the first day I met you.'

Her words shocked him. He had never been with a woman that used the word fuck. Even the few whores he had been with had more class.

‘I want your cock inside me,' she whispered. She stuck her tongue in his ear and pushed him backward onto the bed. He fell across the mattress with his head halfway up the bed, his Cole Haan Carnegies still firmly on the floor. She climbed on top, straddled him, pushed her pubic bone into his penis. ‘You want to fuck me, Timothy?'

‘I do,' he said. But felt like adding: ‘If you would only stop talking.'

She unzipped his pants. She moved her hand down his abdomen, and lifted the elastic band of his cotton briefs. Without thinking, Timothy grabbed her hand, hard, stopped it from moving.

‘Hey,' she said. She looked surprised. ‘What's wrong?'

He sat up on his elbows, pushed her gently off him. She climbed down from the bed and stood over him.

‘Nothing,' he said. ‘It's just …' He didn't know what to say, because he truly did not know what was wrong. But it was something. He didn't want to continue. He had cheated before, and had never had difficulty doing so. But for some reason, tonight, he couldn't go through with it. He said, for lack of anything better: ‘I'm married.'

‘It'll be our secret,' Tricia said. She wore a sly smile, the one she always tried when she spoke about his wife.

‘But …' he said, and he waited for an explanation to form, so he could relay it to her. None came. He needed to tell her about Katherine: about how she could be a pain in the ass, but that he loved her; about how her mood swings often made marriage
into hell, but that he had learned how to cope with them; about how sometimes they hated each other, but only for the briefest of moments; and about how, after every fight, he, improbable as it sounded, loved her even more.

Maybe it was the anniversary weekend just passed, in which he could feel her weakness, merely by touching her – the way a boy can hold a field mouse and feel its tiny bones and frantic breathing, and know that one hard touch can destroy it. Maybe he needed to drive to Tricia's apartment that night, to come this close to betraying Katherine, to understand how fragile she was, and how much she meant to him, and how much he needed to protect her.