Now she finishes making the beds, and as she clears the breakfast table she keeps on glancing at the clock in the kitchen. She’s put on matte-red lipstick to match the print on her dress. Her high heels, brown, recently purchased, pinch her feet. She sits down in the vestibule and waits. Paul shows up half an hour late in the company GMC. He drives two blocks farther along and waits for her, engine idling; the town development is in its third phase there. This is the best place to wait for you, the bricklayers aren’t working today, he says as they pull away. Like every Sunday, they go and eat at a city on the Nevada border called North River, where you can get the best trout in the West. With a mound of fried fish before them, eating with their fingers, they tell jokes, anecdotes from the week, and neither of them laments not being able to live together. Afterward they kiss and the grease on their lips is a reminder that for her will last the whole week and for him until he uses the napkin. They’ve driven a different way today and instead of following the meal with a trip to the small hotel on Washington Street, they decide to go a number of miles south to take a look at a spectacular canyon on the outskirts of the town of Ely and soon Paul exclaims, Look! The shoe poplar! They pull over. They try counting how many there are, but the sheer quantity, and the tangle, make counting impossible. Get me down those movie star shoes, she says, or even better, those ski boots, for when we go skiing. If you want, says Paul, I’ll get you these ones down, they’re nearer. No, she says, not more climbing boots, no thanks. He looks at her and asks, How’s little Billy doing? Really good, she says, he’s such a joy, even more as he gets older. He and his dad have gone to Boulder City for the rock-climbing competition. A familiar silence between them descends. Then he slaps her on the back, by the clasp of her bra, and with a Let’s get out of here! he takes her by the hand and leads her to the car, and they continue to the canyon. With the windows down and the radio on, says Paul, lighting a cigarette, the GMC’s like the spaceship out of Star Trek. Sure, she says, with a bad-tempered flick of the hand: she’s got blisters from her shoes, she’s undone the straps. Reclining the seat, she thrusts one leg out of the window. The wind hits her foot and carries away the shoe. They both laugh. Out in the middle of the asphalt, like a rabbit without a litter, the brown high heel is lost almost immediately in the desert dust; neither 2, nor 4, nor 6, but 1, the odd number par excellence. She stares at Paul for several minutes as he hums a version of a version of another version of a Sinatra song.