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laughing.
    Still, he could say that and immediately have it all be over between them and forget about it, which might be a relief. Though relief was not what he wanted. He wanted something to go forward between them, something definite and realis-tic and in keeping with the facts of their lives; to advanceinto that area where nothing actually seemed possible at the moment.
    Austin slowly let go of Joséphine's hand. Then he reached both of his hands to her face and turned it toward him, and leaned across the open space and said, just before he kissed her, “I'm at least going to kiss you. I feel like I'm entitled to do that, and I'm going to.”
    Joséphine Belliard did not resist him at all, though she did not in any way concur. Her face was soft and compliant. She had a plain, not in the least full, mouth, and when Austin put his lips against hers she did not move toward him. She let herself be kissed, and Austin was immediately, cruelly aware of it. This is what was taking place: he was forcing himself on this woman, and a feeling came over him as he pressed his lips more completely onto hers that he was delusionary and foolish and pathetic—the kind of man he would make fun of if he heard himself described using only these facts as evidence. It was an awful feeling, like being old, and he felt his insides go hollow and his arms become heavy as cudgels. He wanted to disappear from this car seat and remember none of the idiotic things he had just an instant before been thinking.
This
had now been the first permanent move, when potentiality ended, and it had been the wrong one, the worst one possible. It was ludicrous.
    Though before he could move his lips away, he realized Joséphine Belliard was saying something, speaking with her lips against his lips, faintly, and that by not resisting him she was in fact kissing him, her face almost unconsciously giving up to his intention. What she was saying all the while Austin was kissing her thin mouth was—whisperingly, almost dreamily—
“Non,
non,
non,
non,
non.
Please. I can't. I can't.
Non
,
non
.
”
    Though she didn't stop.
No
was not what she meant exactly—she let her lips slightly part in a gesture of recognition.And after a moment, a long suspended moment, Austin inched away, sat back in his seat and took a deep breath. He put his hands back in his lap, and let the kiss fill the space between them, a space he had somehow hoped to fill with words. It was the most unexpected and enticing thing that could've come of his wish to do right.
    She did not take an audible breath. She merely sat as she'd sat before he'd kissed her, and did not speak or seem to have anything in her mind to say. Things were mostly as they had been before he'd kissed her, only he
had
kissed her—
they
had kissed—and that made all the difference in the world.
    “I'd like to see you tomorrow,” Austin said very resolutely.
    “Yes,” Joséphine said almost sorrowfully, as if she couldn't help agreeing. “Okay.”
    And he was satisfied then that there was nothing else to say. Things were as they should be. Nothing would go wrong.
    “Good night,” Austin said with the same resolution as before. He opened the car door and hauled himself out onto the street.
    “Okay,” she said. She didn't look out the door, though he leaned back into the opening and looked at her. She had her hands on the steering wheel, staring straight ahead, appearing no different really from when she'd stopped to let him out five minutes before—only slightly more fatigued.
    He wanted to say one more good word that would help balance how she felt at that moment—not that he had the slightest idea how she felt. She was opaque to him, completely opaque, and that was not even so interesting. Though all he could think to say was something as inane as the last thing had been ruinous.
Two people don't see the same landscape.
These were the terrible words he thought, though he didn't say them. He just smiled in at her,