“Hey, Kevin. Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?” she said, coyly smiling at James while smoothing her tweed lapel.

“Hey, Jana,” Kevin flatly stated, with a faint sigh of exasperation. “This is James. And this is Sheila. Sheila. James. This is Jana. My coclerk.” I smiled, about to speak, but Jana quickly turned her back to me, focusing on her prey.

“So, James, wherever did you come from?”

“Rochester.”

“You mean you went to Rochester Law?” She was crestfallen.

“No. I’m from Rochester. You asked me where I was from,” James explained matter-of-factly.

“Oh. Well. Where did you go to law school?” she implored impatiently.

“Columbia. I went to Columbia Law.”

Jana looked like she was about to wet her pants with glee. “Wow. That’s great. You know, I went to Virginia”—she smiled widely—“and I was on the Law Review there.” James nodded. I looked at Kevin, who’d lost his personality.

“That’s great. Did you like Virginia?” I cut in, attempting to insert myself. Jana turned, barely, in my direction, obviously annoyed that I was interrupting what she deemed to be a private conversation.

“It was great. It’s Virginia. What’s not to like!” she sneered before returning to James. I returned to Kevin, hoping to resurrect him. We headed back to the bar.

“Wow. You’ve got quite a year ahead of you with that one!” I said. “Hey, Kevin, want to share a cab back to the hood?”

He nodded. James decided to stay, curiously engrossed in conversation with Jana. Men never ceased to amaze me in terms of what they would endure to get laid. Then again, I couldn’t really blame him. I’d probably recite the Bill of Rights to Sanjay if it meant sex in return. It’d been ages since Sanjay and I had done it. With his rotation schedule, we saw each other once a month, if that. And even then, Sanjay was often “too tired.”

I was about to get off at my apartment building when Kevin suggested the infamous “final final.” You know, the last drink that sounds like a terrific idea at the time and a terrible one the next morning. We parked it at Tryst, a gritty neighborhood joint with cracked maroon pleather booths.

“So, what’s your story, Sheila? Where are you from, et cetera?” Kevin asked earnestly.

“Well, I’m from Reston, Virginia. Went to Michigan undergrad. Worked in Miami as a television news producer before heading to New York for law school. That’s it. In a nutshell.”

The sign of the aging twenty-something was having lived in about five cities, with about three different jobs, and being able to explain it all in about forty-five seconds. Kevin nodded.

“So why did you leave TV? It seems so much more interesting than law.”

Severe grass-is-greener syndrome—another sign.