They sit in the dining room quietly inspecting the menu, prices first. She has changed upstairs, and beneath her suit she has nothing on. Dean knows this. As he reads, his thoughts keep returning to it. Her body, portions of it, seem to become luminous in his mind. Everything he touches or looks at, the fork, the tablecloth, somehow, by their homeliness, their silence, seem to celebrate that flesh which only a single layer of cloth conceals, does not even conceal, proclaims. She eats a large meal. She even drinks a little wine. Dean gazes at her through his empty glass. A brilliant, irregular world appears. The chandeliers glitter like stars. Her face swims away, crowned in soft hair.
"A Sport and a Pastime," James Salter
[Chicago Avenue east of Damen Avenue]
