“Mi hija, how are you doing? This is Diego. Are you there? Pick up the phone. Are you taking a shit or something? Okay, wipe quickly and come to the phone … I’m not gonna hang up … I’m gonna wait … Okay, I guess you’re not there. Somehow I know that as soon as I hang up the phone you’re gonna get to it … Okay, call me. Love you, baby.”

“Hello, Sylvia, this is Virgil. Please come to the reception desk to retrieve your personal items. They will be in a box with your name on it. And don’t worry about returning your keys. The locks are being changed …”

She didn’t hear the rest of it as she drifted off to sleep.

She was disoriented when she opened her eyes a few hours later. She felt weightless and numb, and ordinary objects seemed unfamiliar, as if she had been reincarnated into a world that shared only some features with the one she knew.

Fuck, she thought, I’ve been fired. She lay looking at the ceiling and thought about this, and asked herself what she was going to do, but withdrew the question when she realized that it would only lead to others, and she didn’t have the energy to focus. So she directed her strength to simpler considerations, namely looking on the bright side. Maybe losing her job was a good thing. If it hadn’t happened, when would she have gotten outta that frigging place? Jobs were hard to get … but she was qualified … more qualified than many people. She chuckled when she thought about her breakup with Lewis—laughter would’ve required more confidence. What a waste of time. What a relief it was done. It had ended badly, but it was over. That was more important. It’d lasted too long, and it shouldn’t have begun in the first place. He was a pathetic, petty man. And a coward, that was all, and she knew he was feeling worse than she was. For how could anyone have done what he did, smack her around and spitefully get her fired, without feeling bad about himself? How? And that Margaret … that trifling little bitch, what did she have to gain?

And then there was Fire. Sweet man, she thought, do you know how close I almost came to you? If only you knew, my loved one. If only you knew.

The phone rang again. It was Diego. She’d left him a message about Lewis.

“How you feel?” he asked.

“Weird, I guess.” She couldn’t find a better way to express her emotions. She was happy yet anxious. “I don’t know where I belong, Diego. I feel like I’m a round hole and life is a square peg—”

“I know what you need,” he said, trying to make her laugh. “A round peg. See, Lou-Lou was fucking you with a square peg, that’s why you didn’t like him.”

“I set myself up for that one,” she replied. “But seriously, Diego, I just feel adrift, man. I don’t have a job … I don’t have a relationship. I’m accustomed to stability. I feel unstable, like my whole life is going to be in vertigo from now on.”