She was very close to Leone, who sat on a stool while he spoke to the moderator. I was still toward the back, with everybody else standing, and I listened along with the others to the discussion about the Articolo Uno Movement, all the dead workers, Gaetano Bresci, the ’77 Movement: and she was listening to him, her chin raised.

Had they kissed? Barbara knows how to kiss, even with those thin lips; she must have thought about how ever since she was a girl, how exactly to kiss with those lips. Did Leone think he’d be better at it than me—at living with her? Her severe profile, her confidence, the light way she carries herself, these attributes have attracted many who thought they could do a better job in my place. These suitors would text her for weeks or months on end about meeting for lunch or for happy hour; she wouldn’t tell me outright when it happened, but when we argued, she let me know that she questioned if staying with me made any sense. This happened so often, in fact, that while I was seeing Eleonora, I’d tell myself that Barbara wanted a boyfriend just to have one—an adult pacifier. She said herself that she was afraid of chaos, and I was well aware that she always cheated on her boyfriends.

I stood at the back, admiring her and sweating. She was taking small sips from her beer in a manner completely different from how she drained her glass at home when she and I would down three martinis and fall asleep by ten, forgetting to eat dinner. She nodded, smiled along with the others to the rhythm of the conversation and the readings. She dabbed her forehead with a folded tissue; she applied lip gloss and dropped it back in her leather purse with the metal buckle, which scratched me sometimes when I fished for a phone charger or a theater ticket.

She was there for Leone, listening to him, looking up at him, like everybody else. I walked out.