“Your friends used to shoot squirrels with pellet guns,” he reminded me. “You didn’t find them morally bankrupt.”

“That’s different. These people at the beach were malicious. And anyways, those guys used to make squirrel stew.”

“Squirrel stew isn’t a thing.”

“I’m telling you—they made stew. They weren’t killing for sport.”

“All right. Your friends made stew. Either way, you just hate the people here because you think you’re tougher than them.”

“I do not.”

“You do. You think they’re soft because they eat avocados and go surfing. And like you’re some hardened warrior just off the Oregon Trail.”

“None of that’s true!” I regretted raising my voice. I wanted to stay nice, for the evening to retain its kind trajectory. The mint candle was still burning on the nightstand, casting a friendly orb of light onto the wall. Help me, candle, I thought. I’m losing him.

“Have you discussed any of this with the napkin man?” Alec asked.

My stomach dropped—I’d forgotten about the napkin. About Theo. I wanted to undo it, to take it back and throw it in the trash. “I don’t know anything about a napkin man.”

“You don’t know anything about that napkin on the counter?”

“I do not.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t call the number?” He looked at me hard, unblinking.

“You fuck with me, I’ll fuck with you back.”

The words made my throat ache. “That’s not a nice way to talk to the one you love.”

“I’m tired,” he said, turning away from me. “Some of us went to work today.”

I held my tongue, pressed my fingernails into my palms, where they left little frowns of pain.

If Alec wanted me to work, I would work. For the rest of the week, I swept and mopped and ran Q-tips along the baseboards. Once everything was spotless, I started cooking elaborate meals that smelled so good Alec had no choice but to eat them. On Friday, I thought I’d try the farmers market, which blossomed in the center of town in the evening, while Alec held office hours.

I walked along the crowded produce stalls, making a point to eat as many samples as possible. I touched everything I could, running a lazy hand along phalanxes of pluots and cabbages. Like he promised, Theo was at the honey table, surrounded by plastic bears filled with golden liquid. We made a plan to meet at the ice cream stand a half hour later, when he had a break. Before moving on to the pickle stand, I tapped the cap of every honey bear on display.

As it turned out, Theo had turned twenty-three since I last saw him. He bought me a scoop of coconut ice cream with one of the two-dollar bills his grandmother had sent him for his birthday. She lived in Oregon. Every year she sent him fifty two-dollar bills and a nickel for good luck.

“I’ve heard nice things about Oregon,” I told him. Cone in hand, I was steering him away from the market, toward campus. Toward Alec.