Behind them, behind the closed door, were the giddy faces of half a dozen people he loved as much as anybody alive (but not Joanie’s, or Corey’s, because Joanie either didn’t care at all or cared too much and Corey was downtown, at the basketball game in the school gym, isolated with the rest of the kids). The next thing that hit him was clarity, as if the scene had shifted and he was right there behind a camera, directing it. “Sure,” he heard himself say, “but watch out for the ice because these steps are—” and before he could pronounce the word his left foot went out from under him and he realized the movie he was directing was a Marx Brothers comedy, or no, Laurel and Hardy, and she was Stan and he was Ollie, and wasn’t that the funniest thing in the world?

He didn’t fall. And it wouldn’t have mattered if he did—he was beyond hurt at this point, an adept, a master, and the universe existed for the sole purpose of orchestrating his needs and desires and preserving him from mishaps. She slipped too, in the very moment, and they both laughed but she was the one who shot out a hand to steady him—her tiny hand, electric, confident, sure—and not the other way around.