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When the race is over Albert kisses him. With one hand on Franz's shoulder to alternately ease and compound their mutual tottering, he claps the other over his friend's ear and tips them both just so to plant a smooch on Franz's cheek. The gleam of the charioteers and the deceptive sweetness of the Lambrusco conspire to make Albert clumsier: for all the good coordination does him, he might as well be throwing a punch. This particular gesture, a cool spot evaporating from a corner of the mouth, is really meant for one of the floraias, a garnet-lipped girl who speaks a little French and claims to know the horses. It is perhaps fortunate, then, that she and her conspirators have already melted back into the roaring crowd, having imparted their farewells with Lunar daisies already wilting on Albert's lapel, in Franz's hands. Were he not too jet-lagged to care, too drunk to manage it, Franz would check his pockets.
Albert is radiant. "Take a good look, spoilsport," he shouts too loudly, amicably, waving a winning ticket under Franz's nose. "I told you, didn't I? I told you." Albert so rarely wins, but then he doesn't really have to. He lifts his glass, lifts both arms and tips his face skyward as the night hails confetti into the wine, onto his hair.
Franz hasn't the heart to rib him now, not while Albert is having the time of his life, at best a quarter-hour away from losing an inflight meal over the balustrade. Franz wonders what came before the wine and the girls and the dew-colored chariots, the thud of lips sloppily parted. He forgets to wonder. Somewhere between tossing his bouquet of white blooms into the crowd below and lifting his own arms to match his friend's posture, he accepts that this is his night too, his and Albert's together, theirs to spend behaving like a pair of fools as they laugh and whoop at their respective windfalls.