Todd said, “I’m splitting for the Coast by the end of the year. What’s happening with you and what’s her name?”

“Glenna,” I said. “She keeps falling over her own feet and landing on my heart.”

Todd laughed. “That’s too country and western for me.”

Just mentioning Glenna’s name had been a bummer, let alone imagining her back at the party with Rick. I inhaled and the world moved close, and when I exhaled, it moved away. I inhaled faster, trying to cling to the world, but I became light-headed and gazed up at a thin, icy slice of moon. I envisioned myself as an exploding star, fragments suspended in space, forever.

“Bad trip?” Todd said.

“I’ve had better.”

“Let’s go over to the Second Avenue Deli for pastrami.”

I nodded. Todd was the only person I ever met who got hungry tripping.

Todd said, “Then we can go down by the Fillmore and you can find some more loonies to write about.”

The wind wailed. I hugged myself, and the world was far away. Todd grabbed the sleeve of my coat, and I followed him back through the open window into the apartment.

Chapter 17

ROSY SCRATCHES OF dawn were nicking the darkness above the Henry Hudson Bridge when I made it back to Spuyten Duyvil. The living room reeked of smoke and beer. Garbage bags heaped on the hearth overflowed hen bones and paper plates, and people I didn’t recognize were passed out on the floor.

I tiptoed upstairs, planning to sneak under the quilt beside Glenna. Problem was, Glenna wasn’t sleeping. She was sitting on the bed in her crimson-velvet party dress.

“How could you do that?” she said, and a soda can sailed past my head, plinking against the wall.

“Do what?” I asked, flipping the empty can into the wastebasket.

“Walk out on me at my own party?”

“Who told you to invite ortho moron?”

“God, it’s not like Rick and I were married. We dated for a year.”

“Dated?” I said. “Don’t be polite. Dating’s another word for fucking.”

“Rick and I are just friends.”

This status report, I surmised, meant that it was obligatory for me to pretend I wasn’t pissed. Instead, I suppressed an impulse to strangle her. “The section of guys’ brains in charge of friendship with chicks is directly connected to their dicks.”

“What complete horseshit,” she said. “But chicks and dicks—now there’s a real groovy rhyme.”

“Bottom line, Glenna: if Rick’s your friend, he’s only hanging around to freak out some other chick or he’s hoping to get laid.”

“Rick and I care about each other. That’s it. He’s happy for me, that I have you.”

Her tone was overly patient, as if she were addressing her pet orangutan, and it did not temper my urge to throttle her.

She said, “I invited Rick because I thought you two would get along and you’d be more comfortable.”

“Why would we get along? I like to fuck for more than sixty seconds.”