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leopard that had fallen through a torn patch in the roof last week. It landed on Annabel’s mother in her bed. Inside the stone house Jane could see more people crossing back and forth making dinner.
    It was looking for food, said the girl, her white teeth glowing in the dusk. She wore a safari shirt and a short skirt. But it did freak her mum out a bit.
    A bit, Jane said.
    What did she do with it? said the fellow with the boots.
    Shooed it out the window, said the girl, blowing cigarette smoke toward the fire. Poor thing didn’t want to be there either.
    Maybe I better go get Harry, Andy said.
    He’s not back? Jane said. Beyond the fire was blackness and the rushing of the river.
    Well, Joss went to meet the plane, he said vaguely. I’ll go see. He gently moved off to be engulfed by blackness after which they heard the sputtering of a motor.
    Inside Jane met their hostess. Annabel wore a ripped green evening gown and had red hair arranged in a loose triangle on her head. A long table was being set among rocks and feathers and bones. Jane was given the job of picking wax from Moroccan candlesticks and pouring salt into oyster shells, fossils from the river.
    Hours later the table was crowded with plates of grilled meat and glistening bottles and candle flames. There were stories of men falling out of the sky, of cars breaking down crossing streams, of mothers running off with young lovers. A steady rain drummed on the roof above them. Janesat beside a man in a polo shirt who was pointing out the absurdity of monogamy. Look at the animals, he said. Need I say more?
    Annabel stood, pouring wine into everyone’s glasses, her smile showing wine-stained teeth.
    You have someone back home? he asked her.
    Kind of, she lied. She thought of the painter she’d liked lately though nothing had gone on between them.
    Don’t let a man put you in a cage, he said. Ever.
    Julia mentioned that it was her birthday as if she’d just remembered it, and everyone shouted and gave her toasts. Some time later Annabel handed her a present wrapped in a banana leaf and tied with a brown Hermès ribbon.
    Much later Jane found herself outside in a pitch dark pouring with rain beside strangers pushing a car stuck in the muddy hillside. She gripped the door handle, her bare feet sunk in mud. The car would rev in a great burst, roll forward an inch then rock back down, inert. Try it again! they yelled. Another rev, another group shove, and it wasn’t budging an inch. People shouted, insulting each other, laughing. The rain was loud, slapping on the slick grass, but still Jane could hear the low constant roar of the river. The jaunty thump of music played from a tape inside where lanterns shone from yellow windows, casting dim smudges. Otherwise everything was black.
    Jane could hardly see her hands. The shirt of the person beside her showed because it was light-colored. They kept heaving and shoving against the car. Suddenly it jerked forward, pulling out from everyone. Jane stumbled, managing somehow not to fall. A headless figure with a white shirt slid by as if on skis and grabbed her upper arm. Harry pulled her along so she skated at his side for a moment on the slick ground before they both toppled over into spattering mud. His arms were cupped around her, and they rolled in this clasp down the slope, somersaulting. The face was close and dark with darker spots where the eyes were and when its mouth came near she kissed it, kissing water and rain and bits of grit on his lips, thinking,
I’m kissing Harry
. She felt his chest warm through his soaked shirt. In her mind were images of the dinner and the faces around the candlelit table, of driving that day on the red snaking road, then of Harry lifting up into the orange air over her. They’d hada lot of wine and her thinking was far off and hazy but one thought did come—this is the way you found a person, crashing into him in the dark, without decision, without knowing where you were