Again Lander looks startled and then he breaks out laughing. I find myself giggling too and then something in me just sort of breaks and succumbs to a full-on belly laugh. Tears start trickling down my cheeks and I have to hold on to the table to steady myself. It’s not that what I said was so funny; it wasn’t. But talking about my mother here, like this, to Lander . . . It feels like a relief. And maybe for him it’s a relief to hear me reveal anything about my life at all.

So we laugh and we laugh until our breath fails us and we wash down our merriment and tears with champagne and good food. We bring the conversation back to the trivial, and I ask about his favorite artists and vacation spots (Degas and Jackson Pollock for the former; Paris and the small villages of Vietnam for the latter). He asks about my favorite places to shop in New York and where I get my news (Friends Vintage and Angel Street Thrift Shop for the former; public radio and the Village Voice for the latter). We talk about television and the few movies I do like and the many movies he loves. We talk about his love of puzzles and how it was his mother who introduced him to the world of anagrams and how they used to send each other coded notes all the time when he was in elementary school. He admits to having pretended he was Galileo sending secret notes to Kepler, and I’m embarrassed to admit that I used to pretend that I was Cinderella getting princess lessons from my Fairy Godmother (aka my mother).

I tell him just how much I love to read.

Naming my favorite book was one thing, but spelling out my obsession with reading in general? Well, that may not seem like such a big admission for most people, but for me it is. My rebellious streak started at ten, and since then I’ve kept my love of books a secret. I admit to Lander that I’ve read everything from Faulkner to Charlaine Harris. I’ve read Brian Greene’s science books and the political books of Bob Woodward. The Odyssey, The Canterbury Tales, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the Shopaholic books—I’ve read everything. I expect him to be surprised by this, but Lander just nods his head and gently fishes for more, asking about my thoughts on specific novels and authors, asking if I ever thought of writing myself (no, not for publication) and if I prefer ebooks to paperbacks (I’m good with either).

“Are you self-educated or did you go to college?” he asks.

“So many questions,” I say with a sigh as I scoop up the last bite on my plate. “Shouldn’t we leave a little to be discovered over time?”