What kind of problems did he have? Eric wanted to know. So many, Marianne explained: his girlfriend had kicked him out because he was au chomage—unemployed—and on the aide sociale. He needed a new job and a new apartment, but all he wanted to do was go to cafés and smoke cigarettes. You were supposed to help him by looking in the petites annonces.

“He was animated?”

“No, a real person—an actor. You watched videos and typed in these … exhortations. Demands? Encouragements? In French.” Marianne sat up and looked around at Eric’s tiny apartment, the single bedroom window that opened to a dim air shaft. “Maybe it’s your apartment that reminds me of the place I finally found for him: 11 rue Saint-Honoré.”

“You remember the address? I hardly remember anything from college.”

Marianne leaned back in bed and thought—why did she remember it so well? She was no longer close to fluent in French. But she could recall the maddening café conversations with Philippe almost word by word. She understood now that Philippe probably dismissed every French II player’s advice with the same prerecorded, café-swilling disdain, but at the time it felt like he was actually her friend, and it was strangely comforting to have a friend who was such a fuckup. “I remember sitting in the language lab after Philippe blew off this job interview I’d gotten him, and just cracking up. Everyone looked at me but I couldn’t stop. It was the first time I laughed, like really laughed, after my mother died.”

Eric sat up and looked down at her, gentleness and sorrow on his face. “How did your mother die?”

“Cancer.” She took a long breath and blew it out. “I’m not over it.”

“Of course not,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

Telling him about her mother felt like a bigger intimacy than sex or sleeping side by side. It was in some ways the truest thing she knew about herself—that she had not recovered, did not expect to recover. This was behind all her choices—living in an unsustainable city, on unsustainable loans, in pursuit of an unsustainable career. Immediately, she regretted telling a near stranger this truth she could barely admit. Had she thought he was like Philippe, someone she could just abandon in a café?

She found herself arguing with him as they decided what to do next—where to get brunch, whether they needed to shower before brunch, whether they should keep their dalliance a secret from their fellow students. When she said good-bye to him at the entrance to the L train, Marianne figured they would be awkward and silent the next time they saw each other.