Brazen Virtue

for her children from a porch across the street and bargaining ensued for an extra fifteen minutes.

    “I’m not sorry for what I said, but for the way I said it. I go for long stretches of time without having much contact with people, then when I do I always end up being pushy.” She turned to watch the children again. She could remember playing like that, running fast to beat sundown. She and Kathleen together on a street not so very different from this one. “So, are we still friends?”
    “Sure.” He took the hand she offered and held it.
    That was exactly what she’d needed. Until the contact had been made, she hadn’t realized it. “Does that mean we can have dinner or something before I go back?”
    He didn’t release her hand but curled his fingers around hers. “When are you leaving?”
    “I’m not sure. There are a lot of loose ends. Probably next week.” Without thinking, just going with the urge, she lifted their joined hands to her cheek. It felt good, the contact. She knew she needed it as much as she needed long spells of time by herself. Right now she didn’t want to think of solitude. “You ever get to New York?”
    “Not so far. You’re getting cold,” he murmured as his knuckles grazed over her skin. “You shouldn’t have come out without a jacket.”
    She smiled as she released his hand. His lingered a few seconds more on her cheek. Grace had always moved on instinct, accepted the scrapes along with the pleasures. Before he could drop his hand, she slipped her arms around him. “Do you mind? I need something to show me I’m still alive.”
    She lifted her face and closed her mouth quietly over his.
    Solid. That was the first thought that ran through her mind. This was solid, this was tangible. His mouth was warm against hers, and giving. He didn’t push or grope or try to impress with smooth technique. He simply kissed her back. The cushion of his beard brought comfort. The sudden tightening of his fingers on her skin brought excitement. How wonderful it was to discover she could still need and appreciate both. She was alive, all right. And it felt wonderful.

    She’d taken him by surprise, but he found his footing quickly enough. He’d wanted to hold her like this, let his hands wander through her hair. Dusk fell with a chill around them so he drew her closer, warming her. He felt his pulse pick up rhythm and race as her body softened against his.
    She drew away slowly, a bit stunned by her own reaction. He let her go, though the wildly romantic image of sweeping her into his arms and into his house hadn’t faded.
    “Thanks,” she managed.
    “Anytime.”
    She laughed, surprised that she was nervous, delighted that she’d been moved. “I’d better let you get going. I know you work at night. The lights,” she explained when he lifted a brow.
    “I’ve been putting the bathroom together. I’m almost down to the wallpaper.”
    She glanced in his trunk and saw four five-gallon buckets of paste. “Must be some bathroom.”
    “Paste was on sale.”
    “My mother would love you,” she said, smiling. “I’d better go in, I don’t want them to worry. I’ll see you later.”
    “Tomorrow. I’ll fix you dinner.”
    “Okay.” She started back across the lawn, then stopped and looked over her shoulder. “Hold the carrot juice.”
    R OXANNE HAD BEEN BORN Mary. She’d always harbored a hint of resentment for her parents’ lack of imagination. If she’d been given a more exotic name, a more sophisticated, more frivolous name, she’d also wondered, would she have become a different person?

    Mary Grice was twenty-eight, single, and seventy-five pounds overweight. She’d started to run to fat as an adolescent and easily blamed that on her parents as well. Fat genes, her mother was wont to say, and with some truth. The full truth was, however, that the Grices, as a family, had enjoyed a long-standing love affair with food. Eating was a religious experience, and the Grices—Moma, Popa, and Mary—a devoted congregation.
    Mary had grown up in a house where the pantry and refrigerator overflowed with chips and dips and cans of chocolate syrup. She’d learned to take the erector set of bread and meat and cheese and build a sandwich of gastronomic wonder, then wash it all down with a quart of chocolate milk and still have room for a box of Ho-Ho’s.
    Her skin had revolted during her teens and had resembled one of the bubbly pizzas she was so fond of, so that now,