Human beings will all kill each other and die off, and millions of other creatures will each in their own way and time die off, but the aardvark will probably never die off, and knowing this makes you furious—not because it awakens within you some humble cognizance of your own pointless, mortal frailty (which it does) but because Nancy Fucking Beavers has so obviously planted this little lie to goad you, put you on the defensive, to make you talk about the aardvark, and the very last thing you want to do right now is talk about the aardvark.

“Just get rid of it,” Toby says, and blinks bigly. “Dump it in the Potomac. Say that you lost it.”

Toby’s trying to look smart but she just looks pretty, and she hasn’t even brushed her teeth but she smells pretty, you think, unlike Greg Tampico, who always woke up smelling warm and weird, like undercooked beef, and as you are quietly admitting to yourself that you so preferred Greg Tampico’s meat-scent to Toby Castle’s perfume, the way out of this mess beautifully horizons across your frontal lobe:

You and Toby Castle will get dressed in something clean. Relaxed-looking. Like you’ve been away somewhere beachy. For the weekend. You will open the green door downstairs and hold each other, waving to the reporters, and grinning, you will kiss each other and wave some more. And then you will announce your engagement.

The aardvark, you will publicly share, was an ill-conceived engagement gift, nothing more, one which you have been advised to return, but one which you’re considering keeping because you—unlike Mrs. Beavers, you will say—you are actually In Office; you would rather your time be spent working for The People of the Great State of Virginia, and you are, right at this moment, working on Jobs—and you want to give The People the chance to seek out and buy their own healthcare coverage because dignity, because Ronald Reagan was right when he said, “Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives,” and look what happens when we get things for free, haha!

Then you’ll deliver a strangled chiasmus which is nonsense but sounds good, a line your staffers were saving for your next debate: “After all, no one can help what is given to them, but they can give help to others,” and then, in a sugary voice, “Toby reminds me of this every day,” you’ll say and beam, and in that moment, your reelection campaign will officially launch.

You have climbed up onto your knees. Your naked body is wrapped all Grecian-like in your beautiful bedsheets, and you have grabbed Toby’s hands, which are light as croissants. “Marry me,” you say, and your eyebrows lift in a playful manner you mastered at prep school, no woman can ever resist it, and it got you through English and Calculus, several truancies, a graffiti incident, and once even a student integrity panel in which a boy accused you of assaulting him, but you got off because he was a fat kid and it was the Nineties.