There was a time when the heat wasn’t so hard on her, but now it’s combined with a new condition in her body. It’s her 66heart, it’s got a flutter, or something in there is pressing, and on one of her first evenings she met up with a colleague. They had a beer together at a sidewalk restaurant. The idea had been to talk about some new program development in connection with the conference. The whole time he was checking his messages. There she sat, pretending to watch the street life until a friend of his showed up. Then they chatted a little, but there was a moment, while the friend had his back turned, fiddling with his phone, and her colleague was gazing down at his, when she felt so minimally present that she leaned across the table and asked where the bathroom was. Her colleague looked up and smiled, confused.

Afterward, at the hotel, she determined that her heart was beating heavily, and that she was tired of straight men. Years ago, a psychologist she’d gone to had told her that, when she met a man, she should avoid being so clever. She hadn’t understood this advice. Then the psychologist, who was a hetero male, explained that because men were afraid of rejection—and because their penises meant so much to them—they were anxious that a smart woman might laugh at them because they masturbated out in the bathroom. That’s the phrase he used, “out in the bathroom.” “Men think,” the psychologist said, “that less intelligent women won’t mind their sexual behavior so much.”

He had his legs crossed, she recalled, and she could also recall saying that that couldn’t be true. “That’s just the way it is,” the psychologist said, and the entire drive home she thought about an episode of Dr. Phil she’d once seen. It featured a woman not unlike herself. She sat on stage and lamented the fact that men rejected her because she was intelligent. Dr. 67Phil affirmed this without hesitation. Then the woman said it was wrong and unfair. Then Dr. Phil asked, “But do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy?” Whereupon the audience applauded wildly.