See, I was quite the bachelor in my day. Oh yeah. Not that I had a series of amorous exploits or anything like that, some big Casanova deal going, but I had my fair share of adventures. A lady or two picked up in a local club, some moments from my student life that might be better off relived. Or forgotten. A couple hearts broken, no doubt, trampled and left in the ditch along the roadside of love. You know the one I’m talking about—that little ravine there that collects corsages and condoms and discarded socks. Yes, a few of my exes landed squarely in that wretched place. One even ended her life, I’m sorry to say. Committed suicide, and in a rather unpleasant way, too. Stepped in front of a bus, an oncoming bus, and was hit straight on, meaning that she just had time to turn fully toward the driver, probably got her hands in the air—that classic pose, you know the one, like Cary Grant in that movie at Mount Rushmore, like that—before it hit her and dragged her halfway down the next city block. It was a woman driver in the bus, a female driver. Not that that had anything to do with it, the accident; I just felt I should point it out. Get the facts straight. No, it was her fault completely, from all reports. My ex-girlfriend’s. Several onlookers saw the whole thing, witnessed it, and each story was remarkably consistent. She had stood there—Patsy was her name, she was called “Patsy”—and waited patiently for the uptown express, watched several other buses pass, in fact, before moving quickly and purposefully out in front of the No. 6. No doubt about it, Patsy had killed herself and that was that. Not that it had anything to do with me, God no. I mean, not really. Yes, we had fought earlier that week—an attempt at reconciliation had ended in a brutal shouting match in the International House of Pancakes—and several phone calls between us had been equally painful, but I feel in no way responsible for what happened to her. It was simply her time. Or she had simply made time, I guess, is more like it. I suppose when you kill yourself, it has more to do with setting up an appointment with Destiny than Destiny showing up unannounced. No, Patsy had thoughtfully called ahead and Destiny had penciled her in. The fact that she had chosen the uptown 6—the bus that she would ride to my apartment, the one that runs near the river rather than out past the station and then back over—simply added a layer of irony to the proceedings. A fairly healthy layer, actually. Or, as my dad whispered in my ear at the viewing, “This is why I take cabs.”