“It’s nice that you guys understand each other so well,” Joni said, as if Frankie were recounting some goddamned fairy tale in which she was the hero.

I am the hero! Ezra wanted to shout. I was going to propose to my beautiful girlfriend in an unforgettable display of romantic chivalry tonight. I am a knight in shining armor!

Frankie squatted down, then plopped on the floor.

“Ezra, you’re going to close your eyes, and you’re going to breathe in and count to five and breathe out and count to five. And we’re going to do that seven times, and then I’m going to heave you up.” Just like she used to.

Ezra pressed his still-swollen eyes shut as best he could. But now, he didn’t want Frankie’s help. He didn’t want to be pancaked on the floor of this cozy café while the snow dumped down on his college campus and while Mimi was stranded in Kansas City with her four brothers and nieces and nephews and mom and dad who would spend the holiday watching football and drinking beers with three-layer dip. (Ezra could not imagine Mimi eating three-layer dip or drinking long-necked Bud Lights because, despite checking off “adventurous eater” on her original questionnaire, she was quite meticulous about her calories and also her taste in alcohol, which started at chardonnay and ended at sauvignon blanc.) He didn’t want to consider that he had won almost a grand last night in cards, a sum that despite Ezra’s now comfortable lifestyle still shocked him. And how Mimi would feel about all of it because she didn’t understand that part of him, just like she might not understand his previous panic attacks and breathing exercises and inability to turn off his brain when he needed to most.

Maybe she would; Ezra didn’t know. He’d stitched himself together just enough by the time they met that he hadn’t had to find out, and besides, Mimi liked their seamless life, one uninterrupted by drama. So too did Ezra. Which was why he gave up the poker and the blackjack and the online gambling when she tutted about it. He really did stop cold, but it wasn’t his fault that his brain was wired for formulas and gaming the system and winning betting pots as easily as some people won Go Fish. He didn’t even know why he was at Waverly’s in the first place! He certainly didn’t know that they had a back room with a card table, or else he’d probably have failed out of Middleton when he’d attended, rather than graduating summa cum laude without even trying. Then he wondered if maybe it were for the best that Mimi hadn’t made it this morning. Which furthered his despair. He’d never been the guy who was relieved not to have his girlfriend show up. He was the guy who always wanted his girlfriend to show up! He didn’t understand this new dichotomy, but he felt, deep in his bones, that he could blame it on Frankie Harriman’s resurrection in his life.