“Whatever. It’s just really none of my business.”

“I don’t even know how we got on the subject of her.” He sounded frustrated with himself, as if this happened all the time: meeting a complete stranger and having her turn on him in the middle of their first conversation because he was talking about a previous relationship with another woman.

The plane landed, and we, still sitting, collected our belongings. Once the cabin doors opened and the line of human bodies started to move, we both rose and slid out of our seats and deplaned wordlessly. On the ramp connecting the aircraft to the terminal, he asked me where I was going.

“Home,” I said.

“Where’s that?”

“Cleveland Park.”

“Really! Where in Cleveland Park?”

“The corner of Cathedral and Connecticut Avenue. Just before the zoo.”

He smiled, seemingly delighted. “I’m on Newark. Just off Connecticut. We’re neighbors!”

Tongue-tied, I missed a beat, said nothing clever back. Which made me worry suddenly that we were about to walk away from each other, filter into the sea of people in the crowded airport terminal, and never meet again. But before that could happen, he turned to me and tapped me on the shoulder.

“Do you want to share a cab?”

Did I want to share a cab?

More than anything else in the world.

And when he dropped me off in front of my building, I agreed (secretly flattered, secretly thrilled that he’d asked me) to meet him for coffee the following week at the National Gallery.

“Three o’clock,” I said, repeating his instructions. “Near the huge Calder on the first floor.”

“I’ll be there,” he said, grinning, looking like the kind of man I’d always wished I would someday meet, “hanging from the mobile.”

3

He was not, as promised—or threatened—hanging from the mobile, but rather sitting beneath it when I entered the gallery a few minutes past three. Wearing a navy sport coat, a bright blue shirt, a striped tie, and gray trousers, he looked like an oversized prep-school boy, off campus for the day in the nation’s capital. When he saw me he rose and walked toward me. He was smiling and seemed glad to see me, which was surprising. No man in New York had ever seemed glad to see me.

“You showed up,” he said, pleased.

“Of course I showed up. Why wouldn’t I?”

“I thought you got annoyed with me that day, at the end of the flight. You know, when we somehow started talking about—”

I pretended I’d almost forgotten.

“Her.” I waved my hand: Don’t mention it. “I was just queasy. You know, air sickness.”

We walked onto the up escalator and glided to the café, where a host greeted us.

“Well, speaking of her,” he said, motioning for me to follow the host first to our table, “I hope you don’t mind, but I thought it might be nice if she joined us for coffee.”

Joking or not, that was three references to her before we’d even sat down. I decided to keep counting.