Stride felt sorry for the guy from Byte Patrol, who was seated in front of the store computer at Lauren Erickson's dress shop, Silk. The store manager, Sonia Bezac, jabbed her razor-sharp nail dangerously close to his eyes and wouldn't have thought twice about digging in and gouging one out. The techie had a giant physique that made his neon purple T-shirt look as if it had shrunk in the wash, but Sonia may as well have been wearing black leather and cracking a whip.

"This is the third time in a month I've had you in here," she snapped at him. "Each time you tell me it's fixed, and each time the fucking machine freezes up again."

The tech shrugged his craggy shoulders, and his neck disappeared. "Have you tried rebooting?"

Sonia threw her hands in the air. She was tall and extremely thin, with a narrow face, prominent chin, and a slightly drooping nose. With her hands over her head, and her red hair blazing like sunshine, she looked as if she were rearing back to fire off a lightning bolt. "Rebooting? Do I look like an idiot? Don't you think I would turn the goddamn thing off and on eighteen times before calling you?"

"I have to ask," the man said.

"Don't ask. Just get busy. I need my files back."

She swung away and expelled her breath loudly as if she were spitting out a gristly piece of steak. The techie caught Stride's eye and winked at him.

Sonia stopped dead when she saw Stride standing in the middle of the dress shop, watching her. He knew he looked out of place, the way any man would, surrounded by glittering evening gowns and cocktail dresses. He could see himself reflected in half a dozen mirrors. He wasn't sure how he would feel, seeing Sonia again, and it didn't help when she immediately stalked up to him, cocked her head to one side, and kissed him on the lips.

"Soft lips," she said to him. "Thirty years later, and I still remember that."

He had dated Sonia exactly once, when he was a junior in high school. Stride was wild with grief because his father had just died, and Sonia was on a quest to rob as many teenage boys as she could of their virginity. She smuggled a bottle of Stoli out of her parents' house, and the two of them spent three hours in a parking lot near Gooseberry Falls, drinking shots until they were sick. They undressed each other through a fog of alcohol but wound up vomiting on the highway shoulder before they had sex. Neither of them was in the mood after that.

A month later, Stride met Cindy, and he never went out with Sonia again. He had bumped into her in the city off and on over the course of three decades. Sonia wound up marrying a urologist named Delmar Bezac, and Stride remembered Cindy joking about whether Delmar or Sonia had seen more penises in their days.

"It's hazy to me, Sonia," he told her. "All I remember is a cold night and warm vodka. Or was it a warm night and cold vodka?"

Sonia dabbed her lips, as if checking her lipstick to make sure she wasn't smudged. "I bet you remember more than that."

"No comment."

"You became a cop. I see you in the papers all the time. You know what they say. Cops carry big guns."

Stride ignored that. "You're working for Lauren. I'm surprised."

"What, the rich bitch and the slut?"

"I didn't say that."

"Never mind, you were thinking it. This place is just a tax write-off for Lauren. I run the store."

"How's Delmar?" Stride asked. "I understand the man is a whiz with a catheter."

Sonia giggled. "You always were fucking funny."

"Is that the way you talk to your customers? Do mothers of the bride like a girl who swears a blue streak and has a temper like a cannon?"

Sonia swept her long mane of red hair out of her eyes. "I control myself with customers, thank you very much. Except for the young girls. These new brides, they pretend to be sweet little girls for their mommies, but you should hear the stories they tell me."

"Do you have kids?"

"Two. Boys, thank God. They're both away in college."

Stride looked around at the dresses hung on the white plastic bodies of the mannequins. Sonia herself wore a glittering lilac dress that clung to her long, slender lines and would have looked stylish at a symphony ball. Her makeup minimized the tracks near her eyes and lips. In her heels, she was nearly as tall as Stride. Sonia noted his eyes and spread her arms, inviting his gaze. The dress fell low across her pale, small chest, and Stride realized he could remember vividly, even so many years later, how her breasts felt in the calloused grip of his teenage hands. Her skin didn't have the taut freshness of youth anymore, but she was still attractive, and she had smoothed some of her rough edges.

"I clean up nicely, don't I?" she asked, guessing where his mind was going. "Not bad for a girl from the wrong side of the tracks."

"I can't picture you in a place like this, Sonia."

"You mean because all my prom dresses wound up with grass stains?"

"No comment again."

"You're here, so let me give you the tour." Sonia slung an arm through Stride's elbow and steered him around the shop, which was lushly carpeted in a royal blue and had track lighting illuminating the racks. One sparkling chandelier was hung in the center of the ceiling. Sonia rattled off the names of Italian designers whom Stride had never heard of and had him run his fingers along fabrics that slid off his skin like skates on fresh ice. His hands came away with glitter.

Silk was located on Superior Street in the heart of the brick-lined streets of downtown. Nearby, there were funky gift shops and coffeehouses offering tarot card readings designed to lure tourists out of Canal Park and New Age students from the university. For the lawyers and suits at the courthouse and in the banks, there were also jewelers and investment brokers. An upscale dress shop in downtown Duluth relied mostly on proms and weddings for its business. It was also the only place in town where the women of Duluth 's small upper crust, and trendy young singles with money, could find name fashions that didn't come with a zip-out hood.

"Does Lauren plan to keep the shop after she and Dan move to Washington?" he asked.

Sonia shook her head. "I'm trying to get Delmar to buy it for me."

"Good for you."

"Yeah, except Lauren is trying to screw me on the price. The woman is fucking cold-blooded, you know?"

"You don't have to tell me," Stride said.

"Oh, yeah, I saw the papers last year. She had her knives out for you. It's lucky you're still alive."

Stride smiled and didn't reply.

"I guess you're not here just to remember the good old days," Sonia said.

Stride shook his head. "Tanjy."

"Sure. I still haven't heard from her."

"Tell me about her," Stride said.

"You probably know her better than me. I mean, because of all that craziness with the fake rape in November."

"I don't feel like I know her at all," Stride admitted. "Were you the one to hire her?"

"Yeah, she was perfect for the store. She has those amazing mulatto features and a great eye for fashion."

"Did you know anything about her sex life?"

"Why, because sex is my specialty?" Sonia grinned in a way that led Stride to think she was still competing with Delmar for access to the private parts of Duluth males. "There's nothing wrong with a little sin from time to time, Jon. Maybe you should take a walk on the wild side."

Have you two ever done anything… strange?

"Meaning what?" he asked.

"Meaning not everyone is satisfied with once a week in the missionary position, you know? I may be past forty, but I'm as horny as I ever was."

"That's a scary thought."

"Why don't we have dinner, and I can tell you what I mean."

"Pass," he said.

"Well, you can't blame a girl for trying."