He sat up when he saw me, a boyish smile on his face, and offered me a shrug. He smelled like tequila. When the bartender asked what I wanted, I ordered a club soda with lime.

“Oh, come on, don’t tell me you’re no fun anymore.”

“Let’s get to the point, Matthew.” I felt exhausted, impatient, after the day I’d had. The things Clara told me about from her vision hummed in the back of my mind. I looked back toward the spa, where Emily was bent forward in concentration, counting out the till. The straight line of her part, her pale hair looking almost white against her black jacket.

“I told you, I just wanted to see you.” He grinned in the ingratiating way I remembered from the night we met, at the opening for a photographer Philip Louis represented. He had worn a gray blazer and jeans, his hair, as always, hanging into his eyes. He approached me to talk about buying one of the photographs: a portrait of the artist’s grandmother working a strand of blue clay beads through her magnificently wrinkled hands. He didn’t end up buying the picture, but he did ask me out.

“No,” I said slowly. “I think it’s something else. I think you can’t stand that I haven’t come crawling back. Is she here with you? Is this the Atlantic City episode of your little project?”

“No, she’s back in New York.”

“Good,” I said, though I felt a pang of disappointment. I knew what I wanted from Matthew—an apology—but I still wasn’t sure what I wanted from Ramona.

“So what are you doing, Lil? I mean, working as a receptionist? Hanging around in Atlantic City? Come on, this place is over. It’s never coming back. You want to spend the rest of your twenties in a dying town, wasting your talent?”

“What talent? What exactly was I good at, Matthew?”

“You had an eye, Lily! And I think Philip Louis wishes every day that he could have you back. That new girl isn’t nearly as organized.”

“So my talent was spotting other people’s talents? Keeping someone’s schedule? Filing papers? Fetching dry cleaning? Making phone calls that a grown man should have been perfectly capable of making himself?” The job at the spa made me realize just how un-special I was. I was doing the same things here as in New York. Simpering and grinning and giving customers bad news in my softest, quietest voice.

“You were part of something. Working toward something. What are you a part of here? I mean, my hotel room has red carpet, for chrissakes. There’s an entire wall of mirrors. I can’t escape myself.”

“Oh, I’d think you’d love that.”