The server handed Natalie the drink. She pointed at me and I smiled and toasted the air, for what else could I do? Natalie squinted, looking confused until it finally occurred to her who I was. She lifted her glass in mere politeness, nothing more. She didn’t return the smile and instead turned around and resumed talking to Moneybags, who grinned my way, a grin that said he knew precisely what I was trying to do and that I had no chance whatsoever of doing it. And he was right, of course, and though I was already in a glum mood, it was at that very moment that the incredible despair of my situation fully settled in. That was what my life had come to in New York: barhopping, alone, the few people I had once called friends all unsurprisingly busy for my going-away bar crawl, and yet I still went along with it, equipped with the lone goal of running into someone I’d slept with in the past so that I might sleep with her again with none of the effort typically required—the arduous task I’ve always called “punching the clock.” The futility depressed me, and the smart thing would have been for me to save what money I still had and return to the place I’d been staying to get a good night’s sleep and catch the bus clearheaded and feeling good. But of course I didn’t. Instead I took the man’s grin, his obvious success, as a personal affront, as a challenge, for within it there was the unmistakable element of condescension, and the last thing I needed was to be kicked in the gut when I was already down.

I waved to the same server and sent over another drink.

“You sure?” she asked, eyeing me with pity as though it was obvious how this whole farce would end and the only person who didn’t know it was me. But I did know. I simply chose not to care.

“Absolutely. And a Greyhound for me.”

I winked and threw a twenty on her tray. A few minutes later she brought my drink and took Natalie hers. Hell, I wasn’t even sure her name was Natalie.