While gripping a Ghanaian beaded gourd-rattle, she’d felt her shoulders tense and her whole self grow suddenly, inexplicably hostile at the sight of perfectly folded onesies in shades of beige, gray, and celery, colors too chic and muted for anyone under thirty. She’d almost taken a cab straight to Target for a more mainstream selection, but if the haute-hippie baby store had so undone her, she shuddered to think how she’d react in this mood to that toxic plastic morass. She’d gone home instead and congratulated herself on having the good sense to take a bath sprinkled with vetiver oil. Afterward, from the comfort of her warm home, which she was unreasonably fortunate to have, she ordered a monogrammed L.L. Bean sail bag in a cheerful Prussian blue, only to realize at checkout that she didn’t remember how to properly spell the baby’s name, and though she scrolled through her e-mails, she couldn’t find any message from Kiki with that information (even though she felt sure she’d received one). E-mailing Kiki to ask how to spell her baby’s name would seem somehow inexcusable, as if Sarah hadn’t been paying close enough attention.

AND HERE SHE WAS NOW, on a subway with her eyes closed, reliving the boozy lunch with Caroline, wincing yet again at Caroline’s suggestion. It occurred to Sarah—not for the first time, not by a long shot—that she’d become a difficult person.

She opened her eyes and opened her book.

Having barely finished a page, she heard:

“I see you are an intellectual.”

She continued reading without looking up, offering the same curt smile she reflexively gave to men on the street who said things like Baby, you looking for me? Sarah startled easily. It was one of the first things her husband had noticed about her, how uneasy she was. She had never been able to decide if the observation bothered her or if she appreciated it. He’d also liked her hair—long, dark blond, and straight, with blunt bangs—which she basically hadn’t changed in thirty years.

“It is unusual,” the voice said, “to see someone with a hardcover book.”

She sneaked a glance across the car. He was somewhere between professorial and homeless. He was older—grandfatherly—with a worn tweed coat too warm for an early-September day that still felt like August and a full head of gray hair that hadn’t been recently combed. From his accent she guessed that he was Eastern European.

“I’m no intellectual,” she said.

He asked what she was reading and Sarah said it was a novel, and when this didn’t satisfy him and he asked what it was about, she said it was about baseball.

“You are a sports enthusiast?”

“No.” She explained in an irritated rush how she loved books and movies about sports but never the sport itself.