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—The woman you spoke to on the steps? The one you’ve been following and staring at.

Thomas said nothing.

—Pretty, said Roland, looking at Linda. She stood sideways to Thomas, and, shattering pretense altogether, glanced over at him and smiled. As one might smile at a friend. Nothing in it under normal circumstances; everything in it now.

Roland, old sage, nodded to himself. So, he said, wanting a story.

—She’s just someone I went to school with, Thomas said. We just ran into each other one day. (The repetition of the word just giving him away, he thought.)

—Indeed, Roland said, making it clear he didn’t believe a word of it. So you say.

—Jane here? Thomas asked, needled, and wanting, foolishly, to needle back.

Canny Roland smiled even as he narrowed his eyes.

—Elaine? Thomas asked.

—Of course, Roland said smoothly. Where’s Regina, by the way?

Thomas saw his wife, a tall woman in heels, making her way toward Thomas from across the room. She’s just coming, Thomas said.

—No Kennedy then? Roland asked.

—Afraid not.

—Not a bodge on your part, I hope.

—Amazingly not, Thomas said, snagging another glass of champagne.

—Ah, the beautiful Regina, Roland said. And what ought to have been pure compliment sounded oily on his tongue.

Regina kissed Roland just off the mouth, as people who are something more than acquaintances will do. She looked at Thomas and beamed — shared secret, it would appear, still intact.

—It’s a shame about Kennedy, Regina said sympathetically to Thomas. Her flush had lowered itself to a place just above her bosom, hard not to stare at. Indeed, Thomas saw, Roland was staring.

—Did you get something to eat? Regina, normally not solicitous, asked solicitously. She could well afford it now.

—I’m fine, Thomas said. Outrageous lie. He was frantic. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that, by some principle of crowd physics unknown to him, the throng between himself and Linda was thinning and that she and Peter were being inevitably nudged in Thomas’s direction. Linda, he saw, was now drinking a scotch. Neat, no ice. A half dozen reasons why Linda’s meeting Regina and Roland would be disastrous hurtled through his mind.

—Let’s find Elaine, Thomas suggested, Regina and Roland looking at him oddly, as, indeed, the suggestion warranted. But it was already too late. Linda, detached from Peter, stood beside him.

—Hello, Regina said, surprised. You’re Linda, right?

—Yes. Hello. Linda’s bare arm not an inch from Thomas’s elbow.

—Linda, this is Roland Bowles. Regina’s supervisor.

Linda put out her hand. How do you do?

—Thomas and Linda went to high school together, Regina said.

Roland giving Linda the once-over and not bothering to hide it, either. Jesus, the man was insufferable.

—In fact, Regina said, Thomas and Linda were once in a car accident together. Isn’t that right, Thomas?

The mention of the accident stopping, for a moment, Thomas’s heart. He was certain it had done the same to Linda.

—It’s how he got the scar, Regina said in a necessarily loud voice, shouting as everyone had to do.

—I’d wondered about that, Roland said.

—It must have been terrible, Regina added, examining first Thomas, and then Linda, her eyes darting from one to the other as they stood side by side. But then, remembering her good news, her slight scowl vanished. Her face lit with recollection — so much so that Thomas was sure she would say something.

—I hardly remember it now, Linda said. The scotch nearly gone.

And as if a kind of critical mass had been reached in the room, raising the temperature six or seven degrees, Thomas suddenly felt uncomfortable and began to sweat beneath his white shirt and gray suit. Linda, too, he could see, had sweat beads on her upper lip, a delicate moustache he wanted to lick off. And with the perceived rise in temperature, so also did his emotional temperature rise — seemingly making more of everything. So that, looking at Regina, he felt a sense of claustrophobia so profound he began to think he couldn’t breathe. And he wondered, as he had never wondered