Cool his heels in Iowa for two months? In winter? There’s no way he can do it, can he? And yet, what choice does he have? Living with his mother is free, the house is comfortable and plenty big enough, and she gives him twenties and fifties every time he goes out. She would probably make his car payment in exchange for him doing some simple handyman work.

But would his morale survive? He fears not. Earlier that day, his mother pressed two hundred dollars into his hand and sent him to the Hy-Vee for groceries, which he didn’t object to as he needed dog food for Winnie and some shaving cream for himself. And who should he run into at the deli counter but his high-school girlfriend Claire Bellows, the one who went to Northwestern and promptly slept with Baker?

“Cash?” Claire said, blinking like he was an apparition. “Cash Steele, is that you?”

Cash forced a smile while he cursed his truly terrible luck. And yet, this was what happened when you returned to your hometown: you bumped into the people you used to know. Claire Bellows looked basically the same, maybe a little older, maybe a little washed out; her face was wan, her hair colorless and pulled back into a sad little bun. She was pushing a cart that held two children, a toddler who was standing up among the groceries—his left foot perilously close to a carton of eggs—and a baby in a bucket seat that snapped onto the front of the cart. The toddler was a boy; the baby was swaddled in a pink fleece sack, her face obscured.

“Hey, Claire.” Cash said it casually, as though he’d just seen her the week before. He felt like he’d just seen her the week before because he and Baker had spent so much time talking about her. The good news was that the bad mojo of Claire Bellows had been exorcised. Cash felt nothing when he looked at her. He leaned in to kiss her cheek. “How are you?”

“This is like that song!” Claire exclaimed. “Met my old lover in the grocery store, the snow was falling Christmas Eve!”

Cash nodded along, trying to be a good sport. The lyrics rang a distant bell—Gordon Lightfoot, maybe? Simon and Garfunkel? Cash was reminded that Claire used to be a lyrics wizard, especially when it came to the music of their parents’ era, because Claire’s mother, Adrienne Bellows, was a disc jockey on the local easy-listening station. When Cash and Claire were in high school, Adrienne worked the evening six-to-ten shift; she was eastern Iowa’s answer to Delilah. While Adrienne Bellows was comforting the heartbroken and lovelorn who called in with their requests and sappy dedications, Cash and Claire were making out and, eventually, having sex in Claire’s bedroom.

“And who do we have here?” Cash asked in an attempt to be gallant. He was trying, he really was.