“Hmmm,” the man grunted. “Well, I’m starved.”

Normally, I’d have done the polite thing and concurred. But starved had a new meaning that holiday season. Besides, I’d left the company of the men (at least in my mind) and was staring across the double parlor to the opposite end, where Kate and Anna shared a chair.

If they were sisters, I decided—and that night they seemed like they might be—Anna would be the older, more worldly-wise of the two, who, for one night, stepped aside and let her younger sister emerge. For Kate had the better dress, and that was saying a great deal.

I decided then, if one were to start a new world, if the gods were to flood the earth and begin again, they should start there, with those two.

The pink-faced man looked where I was looking. “Lovely, aren’t they?”

“Yes,” I said.

A cater-waiter brought them an extra chair. Another brought a plate and a setting of silver. Anna waved them off, which made me smile.

“Do you know them?” the pink-faced man asked.

“Yes. One of them is my wife.”

“Oh,” he sighed. “A pity you couldn’t marry them both.”

As if on cue, Anna glanced to where I was sitting forlornly with the men. Then she leaned in and whispered something to Kate in such a way that I knew they were talking about me.

Later, when dessert came, the sexes were free to mingle. Kate and Anna plopped down next to me. Anna spoke first: “You must be in your own little circle of hell.”

“No, I’m having a nice time.”

Kate smiled because she knew I was lying.

Anna, after a pause: “I’m sorry about your friend.”

“Who? Oh, well, I wasn’t really his friend.”

“Of course you were,” Kate said.

“No, a friend would have done more for him.”

Kate: “You did more for him than anybody else.”

Oh, please, I wanted to say. All I did was buy him the occasional slice of pizza. The truth was I didn’t do nearly enough for him, and whenever I did something, it didn’t really help him; I used Lenny to feel good about myself. Besides, I hardly knew the man. Lately, I had avoided him. Part of me was relieved that he was gone. Lenny had snapped, he was insane. He was always going to live on the street. He was a lost cause. If he were an academic paper, he would be my dissertation. So much potential, lost, wasted.

When I was younger, I believed that special people would always find a way to rise up and fulfill their potential. But now I knew otherwise. Remarkable people, people like Lenny who would rattle the world if they were given a fair chance, these same people were starving to death, freezing to death, losing their way every day.

“Well,” Anna said. “I hope this doesn’t sound too in-the-clouds.”