Told of her father’s death, she was taken utterly by surprise. Rocked back on her heels. “What am I going to do the rest of the day?” she asked her roommate, who winced and laughed.

No funeral, Juliana’s mother said. Isn’t that just like him.

Her father had willed his body to a medical school for dissection. Therefore no funeral, not even a cremation. No commemoration. Leaving his “earthly remains” to a medical school had been Juliana’s father’s plan for years; it should not have been a surprise to anyone and yet Juliana was surprised. Called back her mother to say, sobbing—But we didn’t think he was serious, did we?

After Juliana had called to ask the question several times, Juliana’s mother said irritably—Yes. I did.

It was at the Mon ey Bar where Juliana met Nathan Gertler, a visiting professor from UC-Berkeley, gaunt, bearded, polysyllabic, a film scholar who published criticism in The New Republic. He’d been attracted to Juliana’s sunny, uncomplicated manner, her resolute good cheer, sweet but knowing smile; he’d initiated her into a new drink that quickly became her favorite: vodka seltzer with lemon.

Gertler was amused by Juliana. Entertained by her. Doris Day chirpiness, Ava Gardner eyes. When she told him that she rarely saw movies, he’d been genuinely shocked: “Good God, girl, what do you do?”

Juliana had wanted to lift her glass, to hint. But Doris Day would never so expose herself. Nor would Ava Gardner.

Gertler complained to Juliana that his students, who were graduate students in film, lacked “visual” eyes. They reduced art to clichés, they stared without seeing. They could sit through an entire film and not once “hear” the musical background, let alone describe it. Gertler told Juliana of the films of Jim Jarmusch, about whom he was writing a book for Yale University Press; soon then, he took her back to his apartment, sparely furnished, university housing, an address Juliana would not recall afterward, where they saw Down by Law, Night on Earth, Mystery Train, Broken Flowers, and Only Lovers Left Alive on Gertler’s console computer, in a blurred marathon of days blending into nights and nights into days, punctuated by red wine, bourbon, dope, sleep on a rumpled bed, but not lovemaking—not exactly.

Waking to discover her wrists, ankles bound with twine. Laughing though she was frightened, telling Gertler this wasn’t funny, she wanted to be released, she had to leave, but Gertler shook his head—Sure. But not so soon.

Misunderstanding, possibly. Too much dope. (What smoking dope does to the temporal lobe Juliana had learned in one of her psych classes, or maybe it was crack cocaine, so potent you were better off not ingesting it at all.)