fresh fish. "Hey—you ain't marrying Jake?"

"Are you getting out of those wet clothes and into my coat or not!"

"Yes, ma'am."

"All right, then." Her voice is kind of trembly for just a second. "I had a dream last night or this night or something."

"Hah. You had a dream."

"Shut up and listen. I dreamed you fell asleep in your car out here and went to see an old man on the moon and the old man showed you Vera Verina and a French Mimi and a South American Chi-Chi and even a Nita on Mars and you went to see them and got kissed and fed up and couldn't stand any of them near as much as me and so you began crying all over the moon and you'd never try to be anything without me and that's when I jumped out of bed and took my sister Cissie's car and ran out here and dragged you in out of the rain and have you got my coat on yet?"

Her coat buttoned like a long skirt around himself, Frankie gapes at her back. "You mean you seen all that?"

"Oh, it was only a dream and dreams aren't real are they and you'd never in a million years have gumption enough to do anything like all that but—" and she turns, sees the look on him, and she's like she's going to explode into crying.

Well, that's when Frankie finally gets gumption enough to do what he's always wanted to do—wrap her in his arms and show her what he means.

But that mouth of her's going lickety-split again. "Oh Frankie you're not a hopeless dope after all and we'll build the FRANKIEs into a chain with Links everyplace and have a house with flowers and kids and every—uhp-mmmmm? Mmmmmmmm."

Now you explain it. The guy's had some kind of experience kissing and being necked by the most high-charged dames on earth and Mars. But this—no, this don't blow nobody's head out or scatter nobody all over the place. This is comfortable. Like resting in a garden with the sun warm and the air cool and the flowers sweet—and good dogs sizzling on the grill.

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