Carla’s sponsor, Shawna, brays that Carla can call anytime, though Carla never does. Shawna hugs her at the beginning and end of each meeting, whispers into her hair that she’s proud, which stings Carla’s eyes. Carla tells herself she doesn’t need a sponsor, that her friendship with Pooja is enough. But Pooja nods briskly whenever Carla explains how difficult it is to resist going out alone to the Old Fashioned, the Weary Traveler, Plan B. Pooja wrinkles her eyelids when Carla shares her fantasies about their manager, Martha. “Really?” she asks. She burps a laugh when Carla gestures to an undergrad, sprawled on a puffy chair, that she can’t stop staring at. Carla’s never told Pooja about Dave.

In the three years since Dave, Carla has had thirty official relationships. She stopped counting one-night stands when she got to a hundred. Over a hundred seemed egregious, though she’s certainly doubled that number by now.

Carla lets the ferrets out of their cage. They charge like spring-loaded slinkies, bounding over dirty laundry and setting pawprints in butter and infusing the air with musky cheer. She bought them on impulse two months ago from the strip mall in Monona, where she was getting waxed. Shawna had recommended she get a pet, and a sign fixed to the window said: THREE FERRETS. Nothing was more depressing than the powdered meat odor and ratty sawdust-stuffed dogs at the Dane County Pet Shop. Her mission was wax, then rescue. Three ferrets sounded extreme, but one was cruel. She sometimes mulls over the ferret she didn’t buy. He was fat and tummy-bald, without the traditional mask. The light fur around his eyes made him too human. Carla didn’t want that creep watching her while she lived her life. Still, she feels bad. She took all his friends. She wonders if anyone ever came for him.

Boo is so creamy he’s yellow, fluffier, sweeter. Cody, a prairie sable, prefers bouncing around the apartment on private errands, while Boo always wants to play. The playing involves a series of nips delivered at high speed, though, so Carla prefers Cody.

She scoops Cody up. “Come on, Codeine. Let’s watch TV.” Carla clicks the remote and the TV pops to life on a gameshow where contestants have to name their darkest fear and greatest wish. The fears and wishes are heralded with equally saturated, blinding graphics.

If Carla were on the show, she’d wish for Dave. Not that he’d come back, because he would if she called. She’d wish she’d handled the situation better when he got raped, or sexually assaulted, or whatever it was. She wishes she’d believed him and sided with him wholeheartedly. She doesn’t know her darkest fear. She might not have one. That’s maybe the problem.

Carla holds back, but ultimately she can’t stop herself from calling Pooja. “Can you really cover?” Pooja never agrees to cover for her, since Carla works in the Buzzman Reading Room, which is an alleged cruising area. Pooja prefers her exalted post at Reference, picking out computer keys with a high back, as though each patron were a full professor, when most are the same sleepy students in sweatpants and dirty headbands.