“I mean when you were with him. You and Jim could have fun with that.”

“Or simultaneous heart attacks.” But I consider wine and candlelight and crazy music and a game we could play, he and I, that takes us to the edge of the world. Choosing cards and letting them dictate until the playful sex becomes focused on making love and exchanging feelings and adult acceptance. I remember the dream of this morning. “Yeah. Think this could be one of his Christmas presents along with promises to carry out some of these suggestions.”

She stands closer to me. “I’ve never seen you so in love.”

“Yeah. We’re okay.” Then I add to my blithe answer, “I don’t see him enough. Everything conspires against us.” I touch a finger for each obstacle on my list. “The plane’s delayed, his son gets sick, the basement floods, he has an emergency meeting in Denver.” And then I spread my open palms. “We miss our window of opportunity. And that can happen two weeks in a row.”

I jam the cards back in their box. “I know he wants to see me. But I feel way down on his list. After the kids, his job, his house … all his obligations. I don’t see him enough. But I don’t want to be nagging or demanding.”

“It’s kind of amazing, isn’t it? Now you’re feeling the same neglect as the men you dated after Stephen.”

“I’ve told myself that a million times. Maybe it’s my fear of closeness. First I use my obligations as an excuse, and when they’re gone, I pick a man who has the same ones. Is it a trick of life or my own psyche?”

“Have you told him?”

“Not really. Our alone time is limited by his stage in life.”

“Have you told him you love him yet?”

“Love him?”

Charlene knows I haven’t said that since Alex. “You do, you know.” She gives me a hug. “Don’t be so scared.” She puts down the pine-scented candle she’s been carrying. “Look what we all go through even if we don’t take risks.”

“Ah, but love is the biggest risk of all.”

“I’m going to go upstairs while you buy those cards.”

At the cashier, there’s a celadon bowl filled with angel cards. I close my eyes and pick one that says “expectancy” and then meander up the winding staircase banked with statues of Buddha and Isis to the tearoom. The menu lists a bewildering assortment of teas, daily homemade soups, sandwiches, and pastries. A sign announcing the folk singers, storytellers, tarot card readers, and psychics that will perform at the tearoom is on the wall along with a schedule of discussion groups and meetings. A slender man with gray hair hunches over a newspaper at a table in front of the window.