He went to pour himself a whiskey—Macy’s Old Musket, aged ten years, on sale for $2.49—took a sip as he walked back and immediately felt the heaviness setting in, all the way down to his fingertips. He regretted pouring himself a drink while this young woman, his W2, sipped water and began almost to crawl inside the radio, as if she were going to disappear; while she, headphones on, went off somewhere else—a trance. He knew it himself. The static and squealing alone were enough to send a wave of euphoria flooding through him.

“Switzerland.” Now she was filling him in. “The man is talking about a dog that went missing in Grenoble. Gray and white.” She played the cheerful explorer on the tuning knob. Everything, just not a man and a woman in an apartment together, at night, in May.

“How old are you, W2?”

She took off the headphones and turned around to face him. “Twenty-four. Why?”

“Aren’t I too old for you?”

“Too old for what?”

He went quiet, embarrassed.

She had an amused look on her face. “Aren’t you a bit direct, Joe Klein, or is that just how one acts at your age?”

“Of course. One doesn’t want to lose any time. One has less of it, after all.”

She laughed and turned back to the radio, but she had gone red.

“I’ll make us some spaghetti,” he announced and went off into the kitchen, looking among old onions with green shoots for one he could use. He had an eggplant and a few tomatoes. He’d be able to whip something together.

She stood in the doorframe and held up the page he’d torn from the New York Times.

“Will you take me with you?”

He froze. Sauce dripped from the spoon to his shoe.

“You circled the movie,” she said.

He still didn’t say anything.

“Sorry, Joe, the paper was just sitting there on the couch.”

“I’d rather go see Paradise in Harlem,” he joked. “Or”—he took the paper from her hand and read—“Only Angels Have Wings with Cary Grant.”

“Why?”

He took a step closer. And now was standing very close. Her breath in his face. “This is why,” he said. “A Nazi movie isn’t as good for this kind of thing.”

“What?” she asked quietly.

He was standing so close to her now that she might well have guessed. She didn’t step back.