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Fallon, to whom all jazz sounded the same, took on the look of a connoisseur as he slouched in the doorway, his face tense and glazed under the squeal of clarinets, his gas-blue trousers quivering with the slight, rhythmic dip of his knees and his fingers snapping loosely to the beat of the drums. …

They had a few more rounds, talking Army, and after a while the tall soldier asked Fallon how to get to the Central Plaza, where he’d heard about the Friday night jazz; then they were all three rolling down Second Avenue in a cab, for which Fallon paid. While they stood waiting for the elevator at …

[...] Both their heads suddenly turned to look past him, and Fallon, turning too, joined them in watching a girl in a tight tan skirt detach herself from a party at one of the tables in a shadowy corner. She brushed past them, murmuring, “Excuse me,” and all three of their heads were drawn to watch…

“Well,” she said, “I certainly don’t wanna get pregnant, if that’s what you mean. May I ask where we’d be if I had to quit my job?”

He got up and began to stalk around the living room, glaring fiercely at the lamp shades, the watercolor flower paintings, and the small china figure of a seated, s…

She took a bath before fixing the dinner, and then ate with a bulky housecoat roped around her in her usual state of post-bath dishevelment: hair damp, skin dry and porous, no lipstick and a smiling spoor of milk around the upper borders of her unsmiling mouth. “Where do you think you’re going?” sh…