“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, sleeping Mexican at whose back bloomed a dry cactus plant. He went to the bedroom, where her fresh underwear was laid out for the evening, and picked up a white brassiere containing the foam-rubber cups without which her chest was as meager as a boy’s. When she came in he turned on her, waving it in her startled face, and said, “Why d’ya wear these goddamn things?”

She snatched the brassiere from him and backed against the doorjamb, her eyes raking him up and down. “Now, look,” she said. “I’ve had enough of this. Are you gonna start acting decent, or not? Are we going to the movies, or not?”