Jimmy couldn’t look away from the beauty.

“Who’s she?”

“Jean Kantke. Go talk to her. We don’t bite.”

“Oh, I could never talk to one of you.”

“Funny.”

“What would I say?”

“Right.”

A television star, a comic, came in from the foyer, even later to the do than Jimmy. He stopped on the steps, looking for Kinser, or making an entrance, letting them all get a good look at him. He had a face that made you smile or at least think of smiling. He had a can of beer in his hand and wore a black Hugo Boss suit over a Day-Glo Dale Earnhardt Jr. T-shirt.

“He’s not Mensa is he?” Jimmy said.

“Just a friend. Like you, Jimmy.” Kinser turned up the wattage in his smile and started toward the comic.

“Have fun,” he looked back and said. “And, by the way, it’s one thirty-two.”

Jimmy went over to the bar, stepped behind it, poured out the martini and started making a shaker of something of his own. The black-haired beauty, Jean Kantke, was still there, alone now, her back to him.

Jimmy said, “Just as I pulled up, this great song started on the radio. I was going to hang a U-ey, keep on going. You ever do that?”

She turned. From across the room, she was pretty. From here, she was stunning. She brushed her hair away from her face. Up close, her black hair had a blue shine to it. She had green eyes, a bit sad. Her lipstick was some shade of fifties red, edged in black in a way you couldn’t exactly see when you looked for it. Her arms were bare. And long. She laid a hand on the bar, struck a pose, but with her it looked natural. A line of little pink pearls followed each other around her pretty wrist.

As he took her in, in that long second, Jimmy had a thought he’d never say aloud, how a beautiful woman was like a classic car, the bold lines, the unexpected color, the speed of it, standing still. And the sense that its time was gone already, even as you stood there in front of it.