A guy edged between me and the next barstool.

“Can I buy you a drink?” he said.

I studied him. He was cute, in a fratty way, his boy-band hair gelled into place. I didn’t mind having someone to talk to. I smiled.

“Okay,” I said.

“I’m Peter,” he said.

“I’m Eliza,” I lied. What did it matter?

“I love the name Eliza,” he said.

“Me, too,” I said.

“You like this song?”

“I guess.” I hadn’t been paying attention to the music.

“Dance with me,” he said.

“Maybe later,” I said. Nobody danced in this bar. Who was this guy?

I thought of Danielle before her arrest. When she first started stripping she danced constantly. Even high, she couldn’t sit still. She would dance across the room to switch on a lamp.

The boy, Peter, gestured to the bartender for a round.

“So,” he said. “Are you in fashion?”

“Sorry?”

“That’s what my friend and I thought. Either that or a singer, a performer of some type. Are you like a singer?”

“I work at a hospital,” I lied.

“Wow, I would never have guessed.” To his credit he didn’t look disappointed.

“I’m in school,” he said. “I’m a business major. I’ll be graduating this summer.”

“That’s great,” I said, not caring.

“Let’s go sit on the couch.”

That prospect held little appeal. The couch was made of an extremely porous material soaked nightly in smoke and sweat and beer. Peter took my arm, and I saw the matter had been decided. I gathered my cigarettes, my lighter, my new drink. It seemed I would not be able to manage my sprawl of small possessions. The couch enveloped us.

I felt okay. I felt better. Later, I felt great. I didn’t need Michael, I could do okay on my own. I was drunk enough not to care about anything outside the press of bodies around me and the pressure of his hand. In the middle of these people I was in a private space. Peter was making it all right. I could hand myself over, and the world could be happy and he would want me and I would be okay.

The sun was setting, another lovely pollution-stained sky. I gazed out the window while he nuzzled my neck. As I watched, the electric colors filled the world so full I was afraid it might burst. Reds, oranges. I longed to be part of it. I was inside a dark bar with someone’s hand on my leg when I should have been in the sunset. In the sky. But there I was on the couch, helpless, dazzled.

I raised my eyes to the TV above the window, which played a commercial for shower cleaner. Animated scrub brushes sped over blue tile, leaving sparkles in their wake. Peter’s hand raised goose bumps along my arms. He proposed a toast and we clinked glass to bottle. I smiled, glad to exist in this window of possibility, before it got usurped by waste and disappointment. The mix of chemicals in my blood danced and settled, danced and settled. Pink streaks glowed on the surfaces in the room. All the bad that happened in the world gave urgency to their beauty. Soon the sunset colors vanished, and it was dark and smelly where I was. I made an effort to focus on the boy. He was talking about his new apartment. I tried to participate.