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alcohol fumes.
    “Right. I’m gay. You found me out.”
    She moved back to her side, staring out the window. Her face was ungodly pale in the light of a streetlamp. She closed her eyes. Holy shit, was she about to cry?
    I had never — not once — seen Dara shed tears. Not even in the throes of phantom limb pain so bad that
I
could hardly stand it.
    I hesitated, then decided to take a chance. I reached out to her across the gearshift, half expecting her to punch me. But she leaned over and collapsed into me, pressing her face into my chest.
    We sat like that till Dara suddenly hiccupped violently, which got us both laughing.
    We went to El Grande Taco — a cheap, dimly lit, hole-in-the-wall of a Mexican restaurant, and I took advantage of Dara’s preoccupied and semi-drunk condition by ordering a giant chile relleno burrito that oozed with so much cheese it made me giddy. Dara ordered a Dr Pepper and nachos and proceeded to eat salsa verde straight, dispensing it from a squeeze bottle onto a spoon.
    This was yet another in a series of simple motions requiring colossal effort for a one-armed person. She propped the spoon on a few carefully arranged tortilla chips, then squeezed the salsa onto it. She then set the bottle down, lifted the spoon to her mouth, and repeated. Because she still had the hiccups, occasionally the whole spoonful sloshed onto the sticky vinyl tablecloth before it could make it into her mouth.
    Watching was painful. I’d tried being one-armed a few times in the privacy of my home, just to see what it was like — doubling my arm up in my sleeve so I couldn’t use it — and it was just a matter of minutes before I felt like shooting myself.
    Our waitress reappeared as we were finishing up. “Can I get you anything else?” She wore a snug, low-cut T-shirt that framed her magnificent cleavage. They were a sight to behold, those breasts — jostling and beguiling whenever she poured water or set something down.
    “Uh, no, just the check,” I said, staring hard into her eyes to prevent my gaze drifting south and scorching my retinas. Dara’s eyes, however, were glued to the splendor, at which point I found watching Dara more interesting than watching the breasts.
    When the bill came, Dara pushed her purse at me. I opened it, and as usual it was a mess of crumpled bills — even some hundreds. She had no shortage of cash, that was for sure — something you’d never guess by the car she drove.
    On the way home, she fell asleep in the car, despite my jerky driving. I walked her up the front steps and let her lean on me as she punched in the security code and opened the door. I handed her the car keys and gently pushed her inside. I’d have to walk home, but it was nice enough out that I didn’t mind. And I could probably use the help digesting the metric ton of cheese I’d just consumed.
    “Mueller?” she said suddenly, swiveling back around and leaning out the crack of the door.
    I waited, but she didn’t say anything. “You want me to come in?” I asked.
    She glanced down and lifted a shoulder. Her version of
yes, thank you.
    “Okay,” I said, stepping inside. “But behave yourself,” I added, in case she had sex on her mind.
    She rolled her eyes, closing the door behind us. She dropped her keys next to a marble sculpture of some dude’s head on a polished mahogany table in the foyer.
    Dara’s house reeked of wealth. It was modern — lots of shiny surfaces and abstract art — and sometimes there were cleaning ladies working. My modest split-level house was small by comparison — cozy, my mom called it. And it was kind of outdated — midcentury modern, my dad called it. And my mom did the cleaning (except for the laundry and ironing, which was my dad’s inexplicably happy domain), although about once a month Mom went ballistic and made us all do “deep cleaning,” which meant organizing closets or shampooing carpets and stuff like that. When she got this way, my dad would say