Before he left, though, he put his hands on my shoulders and his face real close to mine.

“You can do this,” he said.

I hated this party.

He jogged out of the room and I heard him give a whoop of glee. Then he was back in the doorway, one hand on the doorjamb, the other pointed at me.

“He’s a piece of shit,” he said.

“Woody Allen?”

“Yes!” he said.

I felt a rush of satisfaction. I’d gotten it right. Of course, I had completely forgotten what came next.

About five pairs of hands were on my back, shoving me forward, and I stumbled toward the door, barely managing to stay upright.

“Go! Go! Go!” my team was chanting.

Right. I had to run into the next room and get the next prompt.

As I passed Gabe, he gave me a friendly, sportsmanlike slap on the ass. I punched him in the arm.

“Ouch,” he said.

“Baby,” I said over my shoulder.

Somehow moving helped clear my head. I raced to Ollie, who was standing in the living room, a piece of paper in his hand. It seemed as if he was the referee. Or something. I still wasn’t completely sure how the game worked. He showed me the next prompt.

Cary Grant.

I ran back to the bedroom, and before I was even through the doorway, I was shouting:

“C. K. Dexter Haaaaaven!”

“Cary Grant!” Gabe pushed past.

When he came back, his eyes were fixated on me.

“Charming, not sincere.”

“Into the Woods!”

The rest of the round went like that, rapid-fire exchanges between me and Gabe until I ran back to Ollie and he waved the paper at me.

“You won,” he said.

I whooped like I’d never whooped before. It was so loud that it startled the dog, who was sleeping in her dog bed near the TV.

“We won!” I told my team, who burst out in cheers as if we’d just won the Super Bowl or some other big, important sports thing.

Gabe swept me into a hug, lifting me off my feet as he spun me across the bedroom.

“Wow,” Adrienne said, once he’d put me down. “You two really are the dream team, aren’t you?”

THE_JAM_DOT_COM.BLOGSPOT.COM

THE PERFECT DAY

THE NOVELIST AND I USED to play a game called the Perfect Day. We’d usually play this game on the few evenings when we could afford to go out for a nice dinner.