Maybe now and then at the mall, even, the girl might catch some particular watcher’s leering eye, and if she happened to like what she saw, then with a crooked smile to her husband she would leave her red-faced spouse with the stroller for a moment, and she would walk over to the stranger, and lean in close to murmur in his ear. The man’s eyebrows might jump, but then he would grin a little uncertainly, and they would whisper back and forth, with a glance now and then back in the husband’s direction, until finally she had reassured him that it truly was all right. And then the scarcely believing stranger would let his arm wrap at last around her sweet little waist, with his casual splayed hand thoughtlessly possessive on the supple haunch rolling beneath the thin skirt of another man’s wif
