The opening was filled, this time, by an exchange between Leslie and S, in which S called bullshit on the Rose of Leary, rising from the table to pick up a marker and declare an intention to “edit” the diagram, then putting down the pen, picking up the whiteboard and standing it on its head. “That’s a cheap trick,” Leslie said, and S said, “I know, but what can it tell us?” and everyone stared at the upside-down whiteboard, now with “Under” (upside down) at the top and “Above” (upside down) at the bottom, and each of the people around the table tilted their head to the left or to the right the way you do when trying to read upside down, until somebody—it was Stella, though it could have been anyone—tilted too far and fell off her chair, and finally everyone was able to laugh a non-nervous laugh.

When the doorbell jingled as Margaret walked in, 5:00 on the nose, unfazed by the increased occupancy in the café-bar as compared to what she found on her usual rounds, and walked around the table offering her braided leather cuffs—some natural brown and some black and some an unexpected safety orange—each present member of Love and each present member of Anti-Love wanted one, and some who didn’t have cash were covered by others who did, and Margaret ignored their polite questions unless they directly related to the goods, and sold out of her supply just before reaching E (who was last in the circuit and already wore two of the things), and then she frowned and appended a “Sorry!” to her customary “O.K., thank you, bye!” And then Margaret crossed the room, hoisting her bag higher on her shoulder, and pushed out onto the street.

WHAT IS AND ISN’T PREDICTABLE

The predictability of Margaret’s incursion into the café-bar—a predictability recognized by E and communicated to the table after Margaret had left and as the members of the groups (now one group, as far as a stranger, or Margaret, for that matter, could tell) fastened the bracelets around one another’s wrists—was not, it would turn out, going to be the exception. The new group formed by the dregs of the two groups was feeling, collectively, a wave of disorientation. In the conversation that followed Margaret’s interruption, this collective wave of disorientation was individualized—people sharing details of the situations they had left, roommates, bills, in one case a violent partner, in one case a brutalizing boss; but also people sharing information and predictions based on the “near miss” the media had declared following the storm’s pass over the city, and the earthquakes that followed, devastating to some quarters but not injuring enough to those in charge for the massive changes everyone in this room agreed were necessary to imminently result.