She saw stains she hadn’t noticed on a silk shirt, an aura of sweat in the armpits. All these lovely things she had ruined.

This game of convincing people how much things were worth—in that way, she and Simon were not so different.

When the headlights appeared, they were distant enough that, at first, it seemed like a pair of flashlights.

Ambitious in the mildest version of the word.

In retrospect, she could have been more accommodating. Been more vigilant. She had started to believe that it hadn’t been an exchange.

Even as she told herself she would try to be better, she was aware that she would not.

Always interesting, this moment of possibility. She smiled at him without looking away—that was often all it took.

Her arrangements, at least, made some attempt to meet both people’s needs, offered a shortcut that bypassed all this swampy trouble.

Alex got a series of laser treatments: flashes of blue light soaked her face while she looked out of tinted medical goggles like a somber spaceman.