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When she tells him the price, he doesn’t even blink.

— I’ll take it, he says.

He gives her cash, and she hands him a receipt, which he sticks absentmindedly in his shirt pocket. She wonders what he does in the military, why he isn’t at his base on a Wednesday afternoon.

— What do you do? she asks, looking again at the epaulets on his shoulders.

— Cargo transport, he says. — I have a layover. I borrow a car from a ticket agent at the airport and go for drives.

— You fly, she says, stating the obvious.

— I’m like a truck driver, only it’s a plane, he says, looking at her intently.

— What’s in the plane? she asks.

— Canceled checks.

— Canceled checks?

She laughs. She tries to imagine an entire plane filled with canceled checks.

— Nice shop, he says, looking around.

— It’s my grandmother’s.

She crosses her arms over her chest.

— Your eyes are two different colors, she says.

— It’s genetic. It’s from my father’s side of the family. He pauses.

— The eyes are both real, in case you wanted to know.

— I did, as a matter of fact.

— Your hair is beautiful, he says.

— It’s genetic, she says.

He nods his head and smiles, as if to say touché.

—It’s . . . what color? he asks.

— Red.

—No, I mean...

— It depends on the light.

— How old are you?

— Eighteen.

He seems surprised. Taken aback.

— Why? she asks. — How old are you?

— Thirty-three. I thought...

— Thought what?

— That you were older, I don’t know.

It lies there between them, the age difference, the fifteen years.

— Look, he says.

— Look, she says.

He puts a hand on the register.

— I was born in Boston, he says, — and grew up in Chelsea, which is a part of Boston you don’t want to know about. I went to Boston Latin and to Holy Cross. My mother died when I was nine, and my father had a heart attack when I was in college. I had a low lottery number and was drafted and learned to fly in Vietnam. I don’t currently have a girlfriend, and I’ve never been married. I have a one-bedroom condo in Teterboro. It’s too small, and I’m hardly ever —

— Stop, she says.

— I want to get this part over with.

She understands then, in a way she has seldom been allowed to know such things in her eighteen years, that she holds it all in her hand at that moment, that she can wrap her fingers around it and grasp it tightly and never let it go, or she can open her hand, lay open her palm and give it away. Just give it away, as simply as that.

— I know where Chelsea is, she says.

Ten seconds pass, maybe twenty. They stand in the hot gloom of the shop, neither of them speaking. She knows he wants to touch her. She can feel the heat from his skin even across the counter. She draws in her breath slowly and evenly, so as not to attract attention to the effort. She has a nearly overwhelming desire to close her eyes.

— It’s hot in here, he says.

— It’s hot out there, she says.

— Unseasonably hot.

— For so early in June.

— Want to go for a drive? he asks. — Cool off ?

— Where? she asks.

— Anywhere. Just a drive.

She allows herself to meet his gaze. He smiles slowly, and the smile takes her by surprise.

They drive to the beach and go swimming in their clothes. The water is frigid, but the air is hot, and that contrast is delicious. Jack ruins his uniform and later has to borrow another. When she comes out of the water, he is standing with his hands in his pockets and a blanket rolled under his arm. His clothes are soaked and hanging off him, and his shirt has gone a translucent flesh color.

They lie on the blanket on the sand. She shivers against his wet shirt. He keeps the fingers of his left hand anchored, knotted in her hair, as he kisses her and moves his right hand under the tank top and along the flat of her stomach. She feels loose, loose limbed and opened up — as though someone had just tugged at a thread and was unraveling her.

She covers his hand with her own. His is oddly warm, and rough and sandy and abrasive. She feels happy. It is a pure and undiluted happiness. It