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replaced the tarp. If they bought the house, the trunk and books would be theirs, and it wouldn’t be stealing. She didn’t intend to keep it, anyway—she was just going to take it to her friend Wal ter, who owned a used-book store in the city, and was an expert on everything that was printed, from Superman to Shakespeare. He would know what, if anything, they were worth. She pulled her shirt out of her jeans to hide it, and then it was time to go downstairs again.
    They had already decided, back in the city, that if they liked the place they would put in an offer right away. They had never dis cussed why they wanted it; they just did, and in the elation of fi nally agreeing on something, they did not examine the matter any further. Also, Colt believed they would get a deal, which in his mind was reason enough to buy it. Who knew how long the place had been empty? Years. Whoever owned it would probably be desperate to sell. It was off the beaten path, far from conve niences, the perfect country retreat. Few, if any, interested buyers would have simply happened by, as they had.
    Francie would leave that part of it to him; he was the master deal-maker, the negotiator, the man who could cause publicly held companies to flourish or wither on the vine with a single phone call. Colt arched his eyebrows at her inquiringly, and she nodded back decisively, trying not to giggle at her own seriousness. Marge Westerbrook, expert at detecting these types of exchanges, pre tended to study the floor.
    “Let’s talk turkey,” Colt said to Marge.
    “I’ll wait outside,” said Francie, and she left with her purloined comic.

    4 ‌

    The Blood of Angels

    A fterward, they stopped for lunch in Plainsburg, which, like every other middle-sized town in Pennsylvania—or in America, for
    that matter—had two parts to it. The first was old, dating back in this case to the late nineteenth century, all false wooden store fronts and one or two old stone warehouses-turned-retail-spaces, and a charming, broad brick sidewalk running down both sides of Main Street, itself lined with imitation gas lamps. The second was new, with a four-lane highway on the outskirts of town that boasted a frizzled, litter-strewn grass median, strip malls on either side stretching into the distance as far as the eye could see, and four lanes of traffic moving along in a snarl.
    They chose the old part to have lunch in, but not without ar guing about it, and so, sick of each other, they talked little as they ate, not even about the house. Colt was unusually dreamy—un usually for him, anyway—and a poem had drifted into the room and found Francie. They always came to her this way, accosting her like beggar children, arms outstretched. She spent the meal picking absentmindedly at her french fries, trying to capture this
    38 W ILLIAM K OWALSKI

    one on a napkin before it left again. Something about veins run ning through wood. Wood that was like flesh. As usual, it had seemed brilliant at first, but now that she had the shape of it she could see that once again she had failed. It was another abortion. Argh. Feh . She cast a sidelong glance at her husband, who was gob bling his cheeseburger as though there was no such thing as po etry. Or manners. Colt never asked how her poems turned out, she thought resentfully; he didn’t care that for years now they’d been a series of mutants, a lineage of misbegotten circus freaks. Of course, someone like him could not be expected to understand. To him they were just words.

    ❚ ❚ ❚

    “What did you talk about?” she asked him as they sped east, homeward.
    Colt turned to look at her and smiled lasciviously. He reached for her thigh and gave it a suggestive squeeze. Francie was sur prised at this; he rarely touched her with any kind of spontaneity anymore. If he brushed against her in the apartment, he was more likely to mutter “Excuse me” than to reach out and caress her. What on earth was going on with him?
    “You