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"I don't have any hang-ups. That's just hygiene."
"Bull. We're talkin' a major hang-up." He gave a dry chuckle at her expense and turned out onto the highway.
"Go ahead and laugh at me," she said grouchily. "At least this problem will go away. The other problem isn't so easy."
"What problem is that?"
She traced a thin streak of blue on the skirt of the tangerine-and-white checked dress she'd set aside for painting. "I just can't figure out how we're going to manage our—you know. Our fling?"
"Fling?" He sounded offended. "Is that what this is?"
They rounded a bend in the road, and she had to squint against the setting sun. "It's not an affair." She paused. "Affair is too serious. It's a fling, and the point is, I don't see how we're going to manage it."
"We won't have a bit of trouble."
"If you believe that, you haven't thought this through. I mean, we can't just take off in the middle of the day and… and…"
"Fling?"
She nodded.
"I don't see why not." He grabbed his sunglasses from the dash and shoved them on. She wondered if they were a defense against the glare or her.
"You're being deliberately obtuse."
"No. I just don't see the problem. Or are you still talking about that period thing?"
"No!" She jerked the visor down. "I'm talking generally. You think we're just going to do it in the middle of the day?"
"If we want to."
"Where would we go?"
"Anywhere we wanted. After what happened yesterday, I don't think either of us is too choosy."
He glanced over, and she saw her miniature reflection in the lenses of his sunglasses. She looked small, insignificant, capable of being blown apart by the next big wind. She turned away from the image.
"If the snack-shop counter doesn't appeal to you, we can drive to the house," he said.
"You don't understand anything."
"Then maybe you'd better explain it to me." He spoke like a man holding on to the last threads of his patience, and she had to choke out the words.
"You pay me by the hour."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"What happens during the hour—the hours—we're… flinging?"
He regarded her warily. "This is a trick question, isn't it?"
"No."
"I don't know. Nothing happens."
"Something happens to my paycheck."
"This doesn't have anything to do with your paycheck."
