When her son, Hector, was born two years ago, Esperanza had immediately gone into Mommy-mode. Her desk was suddenly filled with a corny potpourri of classic images: Hector with the Easter Bunny, Hector with Santa Claus, Hector with Disney characters and on kiddie rides at Hershey Park. Her best business clothes were often stained with baby spit-up and rather than hide it, she loved to tell how said spit-up made its way onto her person. She made friends with Mommy types who would have made her gag in the past, and discussed Maclaren strollers and Montessori preschools and bowel movements and what ages their various offspring first crawled/ walked/talked. Her entire world, like many mothers before her-and yes, this was something of a sexist statement-had shrunk down into a small mass of baby flesh.

“So where would Lex be?” Myron asked.

“Probably one of the VIP rooms.”

“How do we get in?”

“I undo one more button,” Esperanza said. “Seriously, let me work it alone for a minute. Check out the bathroom. I bet you twenty bucks you can’t take a pee in the urinal.”

“What?”

“Just bet me and go,” she said, pointing to the right.

Myron shrugged and headed into the restroom. It was black and dark and marble. He stepped over to the urinal and saw immediately what Esperanza meant. The urinals sat on a giant wall of one-way glass like something in a police interrogation room. In short, you saw everything on the dance floor. The languorous women were literally feet away from him, some using the mirror side of the glass to check themselves out, not realizing (or maybe definitely realizing) that they were staring at a man trying to relieve himself.

He headed out. Esperanza had her hand extended, palm up. Myron crossed it with a twenty-dollar bill.

“Still got the shy bladder, I see.”

“Is the women’s room the same?”