“They’ll just want to ask you some questions. And they’ll want to know where you were all night.”

“Here,” she said.

“Before you came here.”

She stared out for a moment as something washed through her. Then her eyes went slack and the blanket fell to her waist, exposing her breasts, and she did nothing about it. It was strange to see Julia at such a loss, as if when she heard the news the secret that seemed always to sustain her had slipped away along with the blanket. When she spoke, finally, her eyes still were distant, as if focused on some far shore, and there was a soft, girlish note in her voice.

“Remember when you spoke about regrets,” she said. “In the hotel bar. You were thinking of me, which was so sweet it almost made me cry. I was thinking of myself at sixteen, living in Ashland. Ashland, Virginia. ‘The Center of the Universe.’ That’s the town motto.”

“I can’t imagine you at sixteen.”

“I was in the drama club at John Paul Jones High School. Romeo and Juliet. I played the lead.”

“Forsooth.”

“It was a disaster, and yet it was the highlight of my life. Is that sad, Victor, playing Juliet in a silly high-school production being the highlight of your life?”

“Who was Romeo?”

“Nobody. Somebody. A sweet boy. Terrence.”

“That name must have made for some unpleasant afternoons on the schoolyard.”

“Terry. You should have seen him then, Victor. He was Romeo in his bones.”

“I’m getting jealous.”

She licked her lips. A worm of emotion stirred in my gut. In all our time together, she had never before rambled on like this about her past, never before let her voice be twisted by remembrance and sentiment. It was as if she were a different woman entirely, open and unguarded, sweetly innocent, the woman I had imagined her to be when first I spied her behind the counter of that coffee joint. I couldn’t help myself. I leaned forward and kissed her.