Dead, she thought. Dead and turning cold.

“It’ll be better for you,” he said gently. “It’ll be better.”

It never was.

They walked through cool streets now, She was smoking a cigarette. It burned down until it began to burn her fingers, and she dropped it quickly and swayed, trying to step on the butt. Her foot missed the cigarette and she giggled. She tried again and missed again, and Megan stepped on the cigarette for her and they walked on.

“I drank too much,” she said.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Such lovely wine. Such lovely food, but such very lovely dovely wine. Oh, I’m drunk, I’d better get home, Megan.”

“Not like this.”

She stopped, stared owlishly at the blonde girl. “No?”

“No. First we’ll walk off some of this wine. Then you can come up to my place for some coffee. You need to unwind, Rhoda. If you went home now I would worry about you. You might start to cross a street and decide halfway there to try walking under a car.”

“I’m not that drunk, am I?”

“ Almost.”

She giggled again. They had crossed a street and they had turned a corner, and she didn’t recognize the neighborhood. A narrow crooked street, mostly residential with a handful of first-floor shops. Little brick buildings three stories tall and brownstones four or five stories. A dark sky overhead, starless. A chill to the night air. Megan’s hand holding hers.

“I’m sorry I’m so drunk,” she said.

“It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have kept filling your glass. I can drink wine all night long without getting much of a glow, and I have a habit of forgetting that not everyone has the same kind of hollow leg. How do you feel now?”

She considered this. “My head,” she said solemnly, “weighs less than a trio of feathers.”

“Is that good?”

“It’s beautiful. I could walk forever, I think.”