I SAW CARLOW ONE MORE TIME. I WAS OUT DRINKING ALONE, between bars, shuffling down a street on the border between Chinatown and the Lower East Side, in the middle of a sort of run-skip, trying to stay warm. It was spring, but the weather had turned cold again as it sometimes did and my coat wasn’t thick enough. I didn’t notice him smoking on a street corner until he grabbed my arm with a sudden forcefulness that made me scream. A group of passing girls started yelling at him to leave me alone. In the confusion it took me a moment to register his face. When we all finally realized what was happening he said, “Can we talk? Can I buy you a drink?”

We walked into the closest bar, which was grimy and tiki-themed with bamboo posts lining the booths and a leopard-print pool table in the middle of the room. It was crowded and we had some trouble finding a place to sit. We ordered beers at the bar and then sort of stood next to each other, getting bumped on all sides, trying to drink quickly so as not to spill. The strangeness of two bodies coming together again, after a time. The actual physical reality of a person’s height next to your own. It seemed like such a significant thing. Carlow looked different, though it could’ve just been the falseness of memory, only the usual distortions falling out of focus as the fact of his body stood before me. He seemed distracted; he kept looking around at everyone but me. When we finally managed to find two bar stools next to each other he said, “She’s gone. Did you know that?”

He had to say it loud, to compete with the noise of the bar. I followed his gaze to the pool table, where a girl in leopard-print pants was lining up a shot. Or maybe she wasn’t wearing leopard-print pants. That seems more like something my mind made up to emphasize how ridiculous that bar seemed right then.

“Lonnie?” I said. By then James had already been to my apartment. Already come looking for her or for comfort or whatever it was he wanted. Since that night, I’d often thought about how it was possible that James was lying, or exaggerating. In the end, I have no real idea of how long she was gone, or if she came back. Maybe she only meant to get away for a while, to prove a point.

“Yeah, James told me.” I stared at him, unsure what else to say.

He stumbled, shaking his head. “There was, I don’t know. It was just something that happened.” I recognized that the change on his face was grief. She hadn’t run off with him; there was one possibility crossed out.