“Yeah,” he said. “I can’t eat from a fucking tray. Excuse me.” He closed his eyes and mouthed something to himself. “I can’t eat from a tray.”

He had been so handsome, ten or fifteen years ago, the star of more than a few shameful sexual fantasies for Marianne. The shame wasn’t from the sex she imagined, but the inadequacy of her own body, soft and dimpled where Davonte’s was hard and chiseled. Now everything about him was slack and soft: his face was round, his biceps undefined. Who knew what his famous abdominals looked like now?

“I’m trying to get everything right with God,” Davonte explained. “The words I say. This book I’m writing. The food I put in His temple.”

“Okay,” said Marianne. Who knows, she thought. Maybe she would see him get back to his old self, fit and muscled. Maybe she would see him that way, in a swimsuit. “So. Lean Cuisine. Heated up. On a plate.”

“Yes,” he said. “Not too hot. It dries out.”

“Any particular time?”

“You think I’m being arrogant,” he said. He stood—he wasn’t much taller than she was—and pulled out a chair for her. Marianne’s mostly unsuccessful dating history had left her helpless against even the smallest expressions of chivalry. Open a door for her, and she’d walk through it. She sat.

“You know who I am,” he said.

Marianne nodded. His eyes were two deep, velvety pools; she couldn’t move. I will never move again, she thought. This was what it was like to be looked at by a famous person.

“Well, after Hurt Songs blew up, I got … a lot of attention. From girls,” he said. “From women. Hell, from grandmas.”

“Yikes,” Marianne said. “That was a good video, though. I liked it, I mean. I don’t think my grandma ever saw it.”

Davonte laughed and shook his head. “That video ruined my career. Do you know I couldn’t leave the house after it came out without somebody throwing herself at me? Couldn’t go to the grocery store, the 7-Eleven, nothing.”

“I bet a lot of guys would like that,” Marianne said. “The attention.”

“They might think they like it,” Davonte said. “But it gets old. It wasn’t for me. I lost who I was. I had some legal troubles. I started ordering in: pizzas, sub sandwiches. Weed. That was all I did, eat and smoke, and in a year I’d gained a hundred pounds, and nobody looked at me like that anymore.

“But it was a bad solution. It messed up my voice and my confidence. I am borderline diabetic, Mary-Anne. This is not what God wanted for me. So I am learning to ask for people’s help. And I am asking you to microwave my Lean Cuisines.”