out there.  Evan made a decision: he would call his wife in the morning.  Why take the chance of waking her?

Jeanette’s black leather jacket was beside her red silk scarf on the iron posts of a TV stand; her sheer satchel of dried lavender was on her pillow.  She’d only been in the junior-suite for two days, but her presence enveloped it: dog on the terrace, flowers on the coffee table, candle on the kitchenette counter––massage oil on the night table.  Evan noticed the bottle was two-thirds empty before he saw the small, framed needlepoint beside it: “‘A place is a piece of the environment claimed by feelings’... I like that,” he said.

“I try to bring a little bit of home with me wherever I am,” she said, catching his gaze shifting to the bathroom, and her black lace thong, hanging on the shower rod.  “If I were really home,” she said, offering him a friendly smile, “I’d have more underpants hanging on the shower rod.”

“In what city would those underpants be hanging?” he said.

“San Francisco,” she said, leading the way to the minibar.

Jeanette liked living in San Francisco, although she often thought about moving to Paris because Paris was where she felt her maximum sensuality.  That’s what she told Evan.  “Me and Jerry Lewis...we’re both appreciated more in Paris.”

Evan laughed.  And when he told her he lived in Connecticut, she right away asked: “Is there someone in Connecticut waiting for you to come home?”

“My wife,” he said.  “And you?”