Appraising her handsome—no, her pretty–companion, Aimée noted that on his arrival, the previously indifferent server became a paragon of diligence. A second latte was produced within, it seemed, less than a minute. And while Aimée’s coffee, when it finally appeared, had been hastily set down—the cup wallowing in a saucer pooled with spilled liquid—his cup, on the rim of which was balanced a delicate cigarette russe dipped in chocolat de couverture, was placed into Rennie’s hands with the gentle, studied ease of a naturalist returning a toppled fledgling to its nest. Rennie admired the tattoo on the wrist of the server (who was suddenly in no hurry to go anywhere). Stung by what she recognized as an inappropriately proprietary prick of jealousy, Aimée wondered whether Arden (whom she had known, and disliked, in graduate school) had, after… fifteen? sixteen?…well, quite a few years of marriage, become inured to the irritation produced by the effect—and by his seeming to delight in the effect—that Rennie had on other women.
