“That’s the whole point,” Todd says, smiling at Karen. “Find out what’s passing for intimacy these days. Find out how fear and mistrust and depression have practically become … aphrodisiacs.”

She stays in this moment, inside the parameters of his gaze, until she hears Mr. Jessup make a throat-clearing noise that diffuses into a groan. “Excuse me,” she says, pushing away from the newly generated gravity of the room. She takes her purse and walks the length of the bar, the blood rushing out of her brain from having risen so abruptly, her eyes shifting right and left until finally she sees a short hallway that leads to the rest rooms. She opens her purse and digs for her cell phone. But at the last second she puts the phone away and veers off to the door marked with a large brass W.

The powder room is oval and the pale lavender color of Wellbutrin. There is a vanity on either side, and their mirrors play off each other as she passes between them, cloning her in both directions like the front line of an army that is simultaneously advancing and retreating. She pushes through the inner door to a room covered in black and white tiles, but stops at the row of stalls. Nervousness, or panic, has absorbed whatever liquid she’s ingested: there is nothing to pass out of her. There is only a needling sensation—a little like thirst and a little like hunger.

Back in the bar, Mr. Jessup is still perched at one end of the sofa with his face cradled in one hand, but his eyes have closed. The bartender is nowhere to be seen. Todd has pulled his backpack over to the little table and is sitting with his legs on either side of it, watching Karen as she crosses the room. The intensity of his gaze is still there, and she’s thankful that she’s found enough bravado to squeeze a little more life out of the impulse that made her leave Savannah. She looks at Mr. Jessup as she sits down and pretends to have just noticed his dozing. She mouths the words, I think he’s asleep.

“Yeah.” Todd hoists one end of his mouth into a grin. “It must be exhausting to be that cynical.”

“He’s nice,” Karen says, in case the little man is still registering.

“Anyway, you’re just the sort of person I want for my book. I need real people who … what’s your job, anyway?”

“My job?”

“Like, for a living. What do you do?”

“I don’t have a profession,” she admits.

“Are you rich?” he asks, frowning.

“No.”

“Good. That’s exactly what I’m not going for.”