I thought a minute, waiting for some memory to surface, but none came.

“Barneys warehouse sale,” she said, twisting the collar so the telltale label was visible. “Four years ago. You gave it to me because you said you had too many jackets exactly like it.”

Right. Those were the days. When I lived in New York and the perfect-weight perfectly cut black blazer could be found practically every five minutes. But I had far more important things to worry about at the moment.

“It must swim on you,” I said. Gayle was, on a fat day, a size two, and I was, on my thinnest, a six.

“Yes, well,” she said, regally, in the manner of someone who had fallen on hard times and had to suffer indignities such as these at great personal cost. “I’ve had to make do.”

“There but for the grace of God, right?”

“And the kindness of strangers!”

She laughed, an impish monkey with all its teeth showing in a mad little grin. Forgetting myself for an instant, I laughed, too. But when I remembered, I stopped immediately.

“So,” she said, her eyes wide, blinking wildly. “Are you nervous?”

Adrienne’s flight was due to land in about thirty-six minutes. I was about to meet the woman who would unhinge me, who would cause me to almost destroy my life because I could not accept the fact that her body was, among other things, longer than mine.

I was about to spend an entire day pretending to be at peace with my physical inferiorities (deformities) and comparatively loser-like career status; at peace with the fact that she was moving to (encroaching on) our city; at peace with the fact that she and Donald were friends (inappropriately close); at peace with the fact that I had no idea what their friendship meant (too much) and where it would lead (to no good).

My life—my future happiness—everything—hung in the balance.

I was so nervous that I shut the car engine off in the middle of P Street as if I were parking.

“No,” I lied, with ample sarcasm. “I’m not nervous.” I looked out at the impossibly quaint street—gas-lanterned, tree-lined, brick-paved—and quickly came to my senses and moved the car.

“God, you’re brave!” Gayle whispered.

I turned my head slowly to face her. “Are you crazy?”

She blinked wildly again. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, Are you crazy?”

More blinking.

“Of course I’m nervous!” I almost shouted. “Just when things were going so well, she has to come and ruin it all! I mean, why is this happening? Why is she doing this?”

For once, Gayle thought before she spoke: “Perhaps there is a reason.” She drew the word out and it hung in the air, between us in the front seat, for several long silent seconds.

“A reason,” I said. “You mean, cosmically.”

“Karmically,” she clarified. She’d been taken to India by her bohemian parents nearly every summer since she was a child and these distinctions were felt passionately.