I went through the electric doors and the air-conditioning blasted me in the chest. There was no one in the place except for the kid with the green apron, who was now spraying the carrots and bok choy with a fine mist from a water wand. He didn’t see me. I started hunting for basil. There was no basil. There was spinach and parsley and turnips and endive and celery, but no basil. I made a special double check, going back through the racks of dripping colorful vegetables, wishing I could be transported to some of the places where they’d originated, like Gilroy, California—“Garlic Capital of the World.” I walked over to the kid with the apron. He was still waving the water wand back and forth over the parsnips. The gentle mist hit me in the face and filled me with a great sense of joy. I don’t know why. Pure joy. “Seen any basil?” I asked the kid. He turned and stared at me vacantly while he continued to wave the wand around. The mist floated up between us.

“What’s basil?” he said.

“It’s green; small leaf—very distinctive smell. Looks like it could be mint or watercress, but it’s not.”

“Never heard of it,” he said. I left him standing there holding his wand. I could feel his gaze following me. He was alone in that cavernous supermarket with me, and I could have been anyone. A maniac maybe—searching for basil. I gave it up.

Back at the house, the party is now in full swing. Balloons hang from the front gate. The dogs have been locked in the garage, whining and clawing desperately at the door. Why they crave human attention is beyond me. People are already milling around the lawn holding drinks, paper plates, and napkins out in front of them. You can tell right away which ones have developed a party technique for handling plates and drinks and which ones are awkward about it. A couple smile at me, but I don’t recognize them. I sneak in the back door and wind my way through the loud crowd to the kitchen. “No basil!” I report to the women at large, who are now very busy with pies and bread.

“That’s all right, we don’t need it now,” one of them says, and offers me a big wooden spoonful of green pasta sauce out of the blender.

“Tastes just like basil,” I say.

“It is basil,” one of them giggles.

“Oh, so you didn’t need basil, then?”

“No, I guess not. We seem to have found some.”