When I crack open the velvet box the creaky hinge doesn’t sound coffinlike and when I spread the words out over the dead, despoiled air—“Do you know what that sound is?”—I do not feel the mortality crush.

I feel hope.

What the Covet Girl Tells Me

Charlie misses our boat night. The next day she is also out of touch. Ditto the day after that—Monday, when my locker is devoid of insulting Schermeresque pranks and when, gloriously, Po-Mo apologizes on behalf of the board, pats me on the back, and formally assigns me to the Nakamura job as floater—even though I have left about nineteen messages. This is weird not only because normally Charlie’s cell is clamped to her ear like a lamprey but because in each message I explained, rationalized, apologized, and groveled in every way known to modern man.

The fight was bad. The accusations against the Rat Burglar— and the accusing erection—didn’t help. The strike to her jaw was terrible. I know that.

But I’ve never known Charlie to give the silent treatment. It feels all wrong. Apparently, though, the twentieth time is the charm. I am in the middle of leaving a message telling her that I recovered that prospect I thought I lost to the Yankees when my call waiting buzzes and I see her name on my screen for the first time in days. Just the sight of those letters in that arrangement—C-H-A-R-L-I-E—seems like a tremendous relief. My screen has missed them.

I switch over. We talk. It’s all right, I guess, but something is off. The meter in our conversation is halting and broken. We’re a little too polite. It’s like we are a couple of students in a first-year foreign language class, unsure of the vocabulary and enunciating everything with too much care. Getting it wrong by getting it too right—robots of formality.

“I’m sorry about your jaw.”

“That’s all right. It was an accident.”

“How does it feel?”

“Fine.”

“That prospect didn’t sign with the Yankees. I got him back.”

Tonelessly: “That’s great.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Do you want to come over tonight and celebrate?”

Insert a pause. Not a long one, but an incriminating one: to this pod-person Charlie the question is not rhetorical. It does not elicit an immediate yes. It requires thought, thought that produces a sentence of hurried syllables that tries to cover up the awkwardness but only emphasizes it.

The ring box pinches uncomfortably in my pocket.

“That sounds great. Sure. What time?”

It’s excruciating, and when I get off the phone instead of being excited or love-charged, I have an ominous out-of-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire feeling.

But I push it aside. I tell myself I don’t care.

For now I am a man of action and tonight, whether everything is perfect or not, I’m popping the question.

When Charlie shows up she has a fragrance I’ve never detected on her before that is at once acidic and yogurty, stinging and curdled. It’s not atmospheric, that’s for sure. It’s not something she picked up from the environment. It’s biological. It’s either anxiety or fear. Maybe both.