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bit late, though.”
    “You were so young.”
    “I’ll tell you a story I’ve never told anyone. About my mother’s death.”
    He looks pleased. This man is way too easy.
    “That last winter my parents were in Palm Springs, staying with my aunt for a month. I flew down there a couple of days before my mom died and then flew back with my dad. They had my mother’s body flown up—Dad wanted her buried at a cemetery near their house. I had packed my mother’s clothes to have her buried in. When we were waiting for our luggage at SFO, standing in front of the …” Josie stops. She is suddenly there, waiting for the bags, no longer telling a story. It had been sweltering hot in Palm Springs and now it was frigid, even in the airport. Her coat was packed in her suitcase and she stood there, teeth chattering, waiting for the bags to arrive.
    “Yes?”
    “I don’t know the word.”
    “What word?”
    “For the thing that the suitcases drop onto. The—Oh my God, I can’t even remember the word in English.”
    “Le carrousel de bagages?”
    “Yes. ‘Carousel.’ That’s the word.”
    “Tell me the story.”
    Josie feels panic stirring inside her. She looks around. Marilyn; a cigarette, a martini, puckered lips, long, manicured fingernails. Marilyn, Marilyn. She is drunk on Marilyn.
    “We were all standing there, at the baggage claim, and first a shoe dropped down—not a suitcase, but a single shoe. It circled the carousel once and everyone watched it. When it passed by me a second time I recognized it. My mother’s navy-blue shoe. Someone laughed. I grabbed it and tucked it under my arm, embarrassed somehow. And then a pair of underpants dropped from the chute—I’m not kidding—my mother’s flowered underpants. The ones I chose from her drawer to have her buried in. Then her blouse. A peach-colored silk blouse she wore for special occasions. It almost floated down, as if worn by a fucking ghost. I grabbed each item and tucked the clothes in my arms. Her bra. Imagine: everyone was watching. Her C-cup rose-colored bra tumbled down. My father walked away. Finally my suitcase dropped down the chute and it was partially open, the items spilling out. I grabbed the bag and started stuffing everything back.”
    Josie’s crying, tears running down her face, and she can’t stop. Nico pulls her toward him and holds her. She lets him. She swipes tears from her face but there’s no stopping them.
    Simon’s gone.
• • •
    “I’ve been sitting in my car across the street. I waited until your father was gone.”
    Josie reaches out and places her hand on Simon’s chest.
    “I wanted to walk up to him and say, ‘I’m Josie’s boyfriend. She doesn’t need another boyfriend.’ ”
    “But it’s not true. You’re not my boyfriend. You’re someone’s husband. You’re the man I sneak away to have sex with. You’re the reason I can’t even talk to my best friend anymore.”
    “Don’t.”
    “I can’t give my father the one pleasure he wants.”
    “I know, Josie. That’s why I sat in my car for the past two hours.”
    “You have Brady’s play tonight. It starts in an hour.”
    “I can’t go.”
    “This can wait. Brady can’t wait.”
    “I can’t give you more than this.”
    “I know that. I’m not asking for more.”
    “You’re asking for a man to introduce to your father.”
    “Why are you here? What do you want?”
    “I want you.”
    “It stopped raining,” Nico says. “Let’s go have lunch.”
    Josie finds a Kleenex in her purse and wipes her face. She has stopped crying but she feels raw. When she first learned about Simon, when Whitney called that Saturday morning and told her to turn on the television, she couldn’t cry—or scream or rage. She sat stunned, in front of her computer, Googling news reports, trying to find out everything she could about the crash of a small plane in the mountains near Santa Barbara. The phone kept ringing and she never answered it. Later there