“A little bit of luck,” I said. But he’d turned and was now pushing a cart in my direction. I hesitated. It had been a while since I’d last seen so many bottles in a place that wasn’t a bar. I chose a scotch, and as Renzo’s hand searched among the bottles they clinked triumphantly. For a while I was the center of attention, with Renzo telling the others how much his book about pirates owed to me. I’d always been very good at helping other people with their work, but Renzo praised me with such conviction, it was as if I’d written the book myself. I even had to answer a few questions on the subject before I was able to disappear into the armchair nearest the fireplace and practice the only two skills I’d ever really mastered: keeping quiet and adapting myself to my surroundings. My return to anonymity coincided with the discovery of a bowl filled with peanuts. Viola joined me. “Hey,” she said, “you look like a monkey with his spoils.” I put the bowl down on the rug and she sat down on the arm of my chair. I looked her over. In the two years since we’d last seen each other, her sweet face had become almost placid, but her legs were the same as ever, the most beautiful I’d ever seen. “Would you agree to be cryogenically frozen?”

“Only if I was in love.”

“Oh, how cute!” She laughed. “I’m conducting a survey, and then I’ll make my decision,” she said apologetically. “And don’t make fun of me. No, let’s talk about us instead. Who goes first?” She made the gesture of someone cutting a deck of cards. “You,” I said, to give myself time to recover and retreat into my own daydreams. I was an expert at this, truth be told. With just a few of courses and a few maybes, I was capable of making anyone feel I was listening to them with seriousness and understanding. That’s what I did with her, actually taking advantage of the respite to try to fill in the blank that had been throbbing in my head since morning. I’d have given the whole bowl of peanuts to know what it was I’d forgotten to do that day, but I really couldn’t remember, so I contented myself with the warmth of the flames under my wet shoes until the fire and the alcohol had on me too the comforting effect that makes them both indispensable at social gatherings, where you would never say out loud that the former might burn the building down and the latter might make you feel as if you’re freezing to death on the sunniest morning of your life. “… I couldn’t stand those converted bathrooms anymore,” Viola said, apparently concluding a speech I hadn’t heard.