Ben E. King came on the jukebox. “You’ve got baby duty,” Bobby told Kate, and snatched Dinah’s hand and rolled his wheelchair out onto the dance floor.

“Da-deee! Da-deee!”

“You’ll have to get taller first,” Kate told her.

Mandy and Chick were jitterbugging. Old Sam was watching a game on television and doing the play-by-play, since the sound was turned down. “Where’s the defense? Where the hell is the defense? Jesus H. Christ on a crutch, just give him the ball why don’tcha and tie a bow on it while you’re at it!” The First Nazarene congregation, consisting of three parishioners and one minister, was holding a prayer meeting in one corner. A group of Monopoly players huddled around one table, with no attention to spare for anything but buying property, acquiring houses, and collecting rent, not even for Sally Forrest and Gene Mayo, who were all but having sex on the table next door.

All pretty much business as usual at Bernie’s.

“Kaaaay-tuh,” Katya said.

“That’s me,” she told her, and they rubbed noses in an Eskimo kiss.

Katya leaned over in a perilous arc to tug at one of Mutt’s ears. “MMMMMMMMMutt,” Katya said.

Mutt endured, looking resigned at this assault on her dignity and person.

The song ended and Bobby and Dinah came back to the table. Bobby gave Kate a salacious grin. “How’d you like to keep Katya overnight?”

“Bobby!” Dinah smacked her husband without much sincerity. “Behave.”

“Why? That’s no fun,” he said, and kissed her with a mixture of gusto and conviction that involved a certain amount of manhandling, which appeared to be received with enthusiasm. Sally and Gene had nothing on these two.

“Jesus,” Kate said, “get a room,” and perched Katya on her hip for the walk to the bar. Bernie, what hair he had left caught in a ponytail, intelligent eyes the same brown as his hair set deeply in a thin face, had a stick of beef jerky and Kate’s club soda waiting. Mutt exchanged a lavish lick for the jerky and lay down at Kate’s feet, where everyone was very careful not to step on her.