The second and last date Mitchell had had after his wife left was with a woman who worked in the insurance office next to his store. Sometimes she’d come in when she got off work, and even though she talked too much and only looked at the oversized books with photos in any given section, he agreed to go to the movies with her when she’d asked him. They chose a comedy, but she kept whispering in his ear right before every joke, so that everyone in the audience was always laughing except them. He’d come out of the theater excruciatingly unsatisfied, far more unsatisfied than missing jokes should have left him. He felt abstracted and disjointed, and it occurred to him that the sensation was only a slight magnification of what he felt all the time. He couldn’t wait to get back to his car in the store parking lot and drive away. But she was in an entirely different mood. She nearly twirled down the street, swayed not too subtly against him, and asked if he’d like to get a coffee. He said no, without excuse.

The next day while he was unpacking a shipment of remainders in the stock room, he heard her through the heating vent. She was on the phone with a friend. “No,” she said. “It wasn’t that bad. It was fun, actually … Yeah, he is, but I kind of like that …” Silence then a long cackle. “I do … All right, details. Let’s see … The high point? Oh God. Let’s see …” Mitchell left the box half-full and went back to the front of the store. That day he didn’t stay till closing but instead left at quarter of five. He did this for a week straight until one evening when his former employee, the employee before Kate, had a dental procedure and he’d had to stay. The woman didn’t come in. She never came in again. He saw her crossing the street once, and another time she was behind him at Westy’s, the take-out place up the block, but they didn’t speak. He couldn’t say when he stopped seeing her altogether, when she must have left the insurance company, over a year ago, maybe two.

He listened to Kate’s new message in the back office when she was out front at the register: “Hi. I’m not here. Say something funny and I’ll get back to you.” But her voice was not hopeful. It was the voice of someone stuck in Maine for no good reason. He hung up before the beep.