Since the disastrous party four days ago, Russell had been taking Desmond’s pending departure badly. It was all loutish, sybaritic Peter’s fault. The long-term couples in a circle of friends are like the big stores that hold down either end of a shopping mall. If one of them goes out of business, all the little folks in the middle start to panic that their world is falling apart; if Sears can’t stay in business, what chance does Pot Pourri Palace have of surviving? Peter might not have felt he owed it to Velan to stay faithful, but he should have considered his friends’ feelings. Russell had been cold and distant and had started spending long hours at the store while Desmond made desultory progress packing.

Boris wasn’t helping matters. This afternoon, another humid day, he was practicing especially thunderous pieces—Bartok, unless Desmond was mistaken—with a good deal less skill than usual, music that was perfect accompaniment to the ongoing battle of Tina and Gary on the floor above. This young couple had moved in two years ago. In private, most of their communication was shouted insults and accusations, but Desmond had never seen them on the street or in the hallway when they weren’t huddled together or holding hands, as if protecting each other from the hostile world. It was impossible to know which was the truth of their relationship, the private fighting or the public cleaving.

Desmond opened up a suitcase on the bed, put on a record (Pauline Anderton Goes to the Movies), and tried to drown out the sounds of Bartok and love, loathing, or whatever it was.

Desmond had always been wary of long-term relationships, perhaps wary of love itself. There was something about the enterprise of sealing yourself off in an isolation tank with another person that struck him as unwholesome. He didn’t understand how it could be healthy for two people to sleep in the same bed every night, eat the same food at the same table, visit the same friends, have the same conversations, and, for all he knew, think the same thoughts. Friends crowed about the beauty of intimacy and the liberating joy of opening yourself up to another person, but when you pressed them for details, it always boiled down to being able to express your anger without inhibition or being comfortable leaving the bathroom door open in front of your significant other. They claimed long-term relationships brought out their best, but that usually translated into being unapologetic about their worst.