But it was like she was watching herself in an old homemade movie. And then her gag reflex revolted, and then spray-puke was everywhere—on his dick, on the floor, on her rainbow-coloured dress. She remembered screaming. She remembered sobbing. She remembered trying to clean up the puke, but she was too drunk to do that with much efficacy and kept tripping over shit. Someone guided her to a bathroom. Someone said, “Oh, fucking gross!” Her pal from work emerged at some point, talked to her soothingly, said, “It’s okay, girl, it’s okay, we’ll get you cleaned up, then we’ll get you home.” Vera was sobbing in the shower, leaning against the wall for balance. “Come on!” said the pal. “Real soon you’ll be home. You’re gonna be home so soon, just clean yourself up.” Vera tried to throw her dress away when she got out. The pal, exasperated, found a huge T-shirt and sweatpants and wrestled Vera into them, somehow got a car called way the hell out there, packed Vera into it with her purse and coat, gave the driver Vera’s address. Vera puked in the car, too, and the driver swore and demanded money and yelled to get the hell out. Vera wandered unfamiliar streets sobbing, with the moon out but no stars; you could never see any stars in this city, not a single one. A man, an old and visibly tired man, out smoking on his stoop, took note of the crying figure shuffling by in oversized sweatpants and said, “Hey, hey baby girl … You need help getting where you’re going, don’t you?” Vera snorted and nodded miserably. She was a little more lucid now, enough to hear the man’s directions to the nearest train. When, an hour later, she finally walked up the stairs of the Jefferson L, strangers keeping their disgusted distance, trickles of dawn were seeping through the city. She took a long, long, long hot shower and slept for six hours, and then got up for another shift. Her pal was there. “Girl, you were messed up last night.” Vera nodded numbly. The pal gave Vera her dress, smelling good and clean. “I washed it for you.” Vera thanked her, packed it away. The pal stared at her. “Girl, are you okay?” Vera said, “My ass hurts. Like a lot.” It did, an intense ache, not in the sexual way. “Oh yeah,” said the pal. “You fell down a lot. Like a lot.” Vera thought, I wasn’t able to stand. When I did what I did. I couldn’t even stand. He probably had to help me up the fucking stairs. She didn’t have a great rest of the spring.

Or summer.

Then. One bright morning in August. Vera woke up early on a day off feeling uncommonly energetic, sunlight shining through her window, laughter from the neighbourhood bubbling up from the street. Her roommates watching something funny in the kitchen.