Yehudah snorted, feeling attacked. This guy was just a customer, his ten o’clock. What the hell business did he have asking questions that didn’t have to do with clarity and cut? “Twenty-nine,” he proclaimed, lying upward.

“Me too,” Jake replied, lying downward.

Yehudah believed him and snorted again, feeling less ashamed of his real age than vaguely pleased by it. He scanned the customer in front of him. A Jewish guy, of course, but clearly one of these Jews who could care less about Judaism, who probably thought it was some outdated code with nothing of value left in it, the type who hadn’t celebrated a single holiday since childhood—a heretic, why not come out and say it? And this guy was also the type, Yehudah deduced, who had been living with his girlfriend for years and years, and sleeping with her for even longer, not even considering marrying her before doing any of the above, never even contemplating letting down his guard until some ridiculous number of years later. God forbid you should trust another person. He felt for a second saddened and even genuinely repulsed, imagining every man he passed on the street repeating the same mistakes that he himself had made, again and again and again. What are these people waiting for, he thought to himself, all their hair to fall out?

“Is that about average, do you think?” Jake asked. It was amazing how similar he had become to Leora.

Yehudah snorted for a third time. This guy was starting to remind him of someone, someone he didn’t want to be reminded of. But who?

“Average for what, getting engaged? Probably,” Yehudah answered, stroking his beard. “Actually, to be honest, most of the guys we see are a little older than that, more like thirty-two, thirty-three.”