I think about his curious questions, his teacup-turning, his very disappointing opinions about dessert. I think of all that, and I want to say, He does.

Instead I shake my head.

“It can’t be good that he gets me worked up that way. I mean, I yelled. In Prospect Park.”

Lachelle snorts. “Believe me. You’re not the first person to yell there.”

She’s not even finished speaking before I start again, propelled by my buzz or by my block or by my utter exhaustion at having thought about this all week.

“I said things to him I regret. I hurt him.” I swallow, curl my hands back around my glass again, if only to have something to hold on to.

“Meg, take it easy on yourself. Everyone loses their temper sometimes.” I look up at her, her soft, nonjudgmental smile paired with a gently furrowed brow of concern.

“You know what you said before about never seeing me get irritated?”

“Sure, but—”

“No, you’re right. It’s on purpose that I’m this way.” I clear my throat. “When I was growing up, my parents—they fought a lot. Loud fights, quiet fights, whatever. Nothing physical, and they were good to me, but they were awful to each other a lot of the time. They couldn’t wait to leave each other. My whole life, I tried to stay above the fray.”

“That sounds terrible.”

I shrug. “Lots of people have parents who don’t get along. But when I got older—” I break off, reaching a limit, something I don’t want to say. It’s astounding how much I’ve told her already. Maybe my cocktail has truth serum in it.

“When I had my own fight with them,” I say, adjusting for my limit, “I guess . . . I felt so out of control. We all said things we can’t take back, and nothing’s ever been the same. So I really try to—I keep the peace with people. I don’t like the way it makes me feel, to fight.”

Lachelle leans back, looking at me with some blend of sympathy and surprise, the latter probably because I’ve spent most of the years I’ve known her talking to her about pens and window displays, new shops in the neighborhood, sales at stores we both frequent. And that old chestnut, the weather.

“Of course you don’t. No one’s ever taught you how to do it.”

I make what I hope is a sarcasm snort, though I suspect it sounds pretty unpracticed. “I told you. I learned from the masters.”