“You saw the damned thing—he makes me wear it. Says it gives the joint class.”

“If you quit, what’ll you do? You got another job?”

“We’ll be leaving soon, any day now, for the Coast.”

“You want to live out there? Between the San Andreas Fault and the Pacific Ring of Fire?”

“Derek wants to try Hollywood.”

Of course he would. What slob actor could resist what Hollywood had and Broadway hadn’t—the chance, no matter how slight, of seeing himself in living color on a giant wraparound screen? And Derek, I thought grudgingly, had just the kind of crude peacockiness to make it out there. Had I found her, ironically, only to lose her again, and so quickly? The thought was depressing: the issue with Derek had to be resolved. The time had come to surmount caution. I had, moreover, a new and lofty confidence in myself, with a well-paying job and a semiluxurious pad. No longer a daft, untested boy, I was a man of carnal knowledge, of deft experience, of Homeric debaucheries (with only one woman, but who’s counting?) in bogs, in haylofts, on the dungy turf of barns.

“What do you see in him?” I began. “I’d really like to know.”

“Derek?”

“Who the hell else?”

“He’s extremely good-looking,” she said slyly.

“He’s not much good looking after you.”

“I can look after myself. Why don’t you just lay off?”

“But why Derek, for Christ’s sake?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s like being in a groove.”

“A rut.”

“I hate changes, you know?”

“You change constantly. It was only like yesterday you made it clear you wanted me to make love to you.”

“I did? Well, a woman can want to make love to a man without wanting to spend the rest of her life with him.”

“So change again. Dump Derek.” It sounded as hollow as a slogan. Buy American. Eat Wheaties. Fight Cholesterol. “You’re going to shipwreck your life,” I warned her.

“Sure,” she said sarcastically. “The girl stands on the burning deck with a noose around her neck.”

“There’s a touch of the poet in you. Only it’s not funny.”

“I think it’s hilarious, the way you think you know everything.”

“What I think—everything could have been so different. If you hadn’t dumped me, we would have been spared the shock of seeing each other again.”

“Don’t be a douche bag,” she said. “Who’s shocked?”

A flight of pigeons darted and wheeled, totally indifferent to my troubles. Concentrating hard, I saw my father twice, first jogging down the street, then plucking a lobster out of a fish-market tank.

“Shit,” I muttered.

She yawned. “Maybe,” she added, “you’d better take me home.”