Madeline started up the car. “Anything you’re craving?”

It was a good question; the right question. “Ice cream? Or maybe something with cheese?”

By this point, Bryan was waving his hands, signaling for them to stop. “Patty,” he was shouting. “Patty, wait a second.”

Patty rolled down her window, the cool air whirling into the car. “What do you want?” she asked. The car was still moving, but Madeline slowed just slightly, so that Bryan had to jog to keep up. He looked good, jogging. An easy stride, despite the snow. Patty wondered if her face looked thin.

“I want to talk,” he called.

“You have Annette for that.”

“Patty, if you’d just listen to me—”

“Listen to this,” she said, her voice rising. She let a moment of suspense build, her heart pounding. “You can keep the blasted blender,” she finally said, and then rolled the window back up, her hands shaking. Blasted—where had that come from? Britain? She didn’t care— she liked the way it sounded, something small exploding into the shape of a mushroom cloud. She closed her eyes as Madeline drove, going faster now.

“He said he cheated on me because he needed someone who was full of life,” she said, “as if I wasn’t alive enough for him.”

Madeline glanced over, then back to the road. “I think it’s good you’re not with him anymore.”

“Sometimes I think so, too. But mostly I don’t.” She closed her eyes, felt her stomach growl again.

“What was it you liked about him?”

The question startled Patty—perhaps she had feared all along that someone might ask her, that she would be forced to account for the years she’d spent with someone who could so quickly discard her. “I hate to say this,” she said, “but I think I liked that he chose me.”

“That makes me very sad,” said Madeline.

“Me too,” Patty said, realizing it was the truth. She wondered, for the first time, if the real source of her sadness was not the loss of Bryan but that she had tried so hard—was still trying—to make him love her. All those months of dieting and for what? He would never love her again. “Do you ever wish you could just eat and eat forever,” she asked Madeline, “without gaining any weight?”

Madeline was quiet for a moment. “You know, my mom has this saying, that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who eat to live, and those who live to eat. I think I’m the first kind.”

“You do like food though, right?”

“Of course. Are there people who don’t?”

“I think there must be varying degrees.” Patty turned back to the window. She felt calm for the first time in months. “What’s your favorite food?”

Madeline was silent for a moment, but then said, “I guess I have a weird thing for baked potatoes, even though they’re basically giant starch bombs.”

“What else? Keep going. I think I need to just sit here and listen.”