“No one in my family is German,” Page says abruptly. “My parents went on this trip to Berlin. Their only trip out of the country, to visit my dad’s friend at the army base. On the night they conceived her, their waitress was called Odilie. They remembered the name. I was always so jealous of it. I mean who wouldn’t be, with a name like mine? I’m named after my grandmother, no whimsical backstory for me. But a name like Odilie, you’re meant for more than Wyneck or Novi, right? I used to blame my name for the fact that I stayed out down there while she was living this glamorous life in New York.” She finishes her drink, so I do the same.

“I should get going. Go and meet up with my parents. They’re a little shell-shocked, as you can imagine. But I like you, Vera. Can I see you again?” Her words are steadier than mine are, buoyed up by the liquor, her cheeks rosy but not as heated as mine, her eyes roving my face like she’s looking for a nook in which to nestle herself.

Do I want to see her again? My tired, drunken brain scrambles for an answer to that question. Before I can dwell on it, I feel myself nodding. “Yes, yes, of course. Let me give you my number.” We pay and get up, the sun slowly waning. I’m foggy brained, confused about the time, the spring air choking me with its freshness. My head needs to be buried in the dark, no filtration, no light. It’s all too much. I want the murk of a dark, dank bedroom.

She hugs me, cradles my neck, holds me so tight that for a claustrophobic moment I think maybe I am buried in the ground. She kisses my cheek, her boozy breath chafing my ear, her saliva wet and welcoming on my flushed skin. “See you soon, Vera. I’m sure we’ll have lots more to talk about.” She squeezes my hand, saunters off, her walk so even-keeled and sober that it’s obvious what she’s doing all those evenings alone in the city, in the yawning caverns of the brownstone she described. But can I blame her?

I make my way to the subway station, shaky, weak. Drunk. But I manage to get on a train, find my way home.

Later, when I’m sequestered under my duvet, three Tylenols thrown back just like all that empty-stomach alcohol, the curtains drawn and the lights dimmed, I take out my laptop, and, like a zealot perusing a sacred screed, I pull up Odilie’s Instagram, right where I had left off.