“It doesn’t mean anything? Of course it does, and of course I’ve been obsessing. Because, fine, I’m royal and there’s a road map, but that’s the entire problem: I don’t just want to submit and salute and acquiesce. I want to take everything I’ve been given, the money and the access and the opportunities, and do something with it. The thought of which makes everyone in my family, and my country, shiver and recoil. They prefer me to remain inert and pleasantly comatose, to not take sides on anything, and to feel continuously and only grateful at having my face imprinted on so many cheap souvenir paperweights and shot glasses. Which I could embrace and even wallow in; it would be so easy and restful to merely relax into uselessness, to float amiably down the royal river to my eventual, unmourned death. And I’m on my way. I’ve done nothing. Because what I’ve been moronically hoping and praying for is—someone. A person. A partner. To share the ride and give me a boot in the pants. To goad me and question every action and inspire me. Which is a lazy man’s solution. But why do I crave that and dream of it so desperately? Because I’m about to turn thirty. And I’m alone.”

“You’re alone?” I repeated, indicating certain bodily fluids glistening on various parts of both our torsos.

“I’m sorry,” Edgar said. “I didn’t mean it like that, I just—I don’t know what to do, with myself or with you, or with how I feel about you, or with any of it. Because eventually we’re going to be required to leave this bed.”

“Okay,” I said, feeling suddenly and bizarrely a tiny bit less abysmal. “Let’s try to be more, I don’t know, upbeat. Because we share a birthday, which means we’re both Aquarius.”

Edgar groaned, the way so many people do when astrological forecasts enter a conversation. Maybe that’s why I have so many friends in the arts—it reduces the groan factor. Do I believe in astrology? No, but like everyone else, I’ll skim my daily horoscope, assess its probability and forget it within seconds. It’s soothing. It’s almost always peppy, rife with “Your horizons are expanding” or “Be on the lookout for love.” It’s a therapeutic breath mint.

“I know what you’re thinking,” I told Edgar, “but hear me out. I’m not going to do your chart or make you get an ankle tattoo of your rising sign. But do you know what the primary characteristics of Aquarians are?”

“According to . . .”