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story about Anthony Hopkins and
The Girl from Petrovka.
    The extra little bit of weird spin on all this was that
The Girl from Petrovka
was directed by Robert Ellis Miller from a screenplay by Allan Scott and Chris Bryant—all three of whom were friends of mine.
    Well? Odd or not? At least I felt oddly encouraged in some pleasantly postprandial way. I bought a dozen or so books on the
     subject that I hadn’t come across before and took a cab back to the apartment. The traffic was still as dense and slow-moving
     as it had been in the morning.
    That was when I saw her—Sara. My cab was turning off Third when it got caught in one of those gridlocks that fan out in all
     directions. I was looking wearily around and thinking how much I would prefer to walk if it wasn’t for the parcel of books
     I had to carry, when I saw her unmistakable profile in the back of another cab two rows over in the stalled traffic. At least
     I thought it was unmistakable. It was just a glimpse before she turned away, talking to somebody in the cab with her whom
     I couldn’t see. I was on the point of throwing a bill at my driver and getting out when whoever it was with Sara obviously
     had the same idea. The far door of the cab opened and a tall, well-built man with thick blonde hair got out, bent down to
     say something or maybe to plant a brief parting kiss—I couldn’t see from where I was—then shut the door and strode briskly
     up the sidewalk, disappearing quickly in the crowd. My hand was on the door handle to run over and find out what was going
     on, when the line of traffic that Sara was in lurched forward and was siphoned off in a fluid movement that made catching
     up with her on foot impossible.
    If
, of course, it was Sara. I could have been mistaken. I’d caught only a glimpse. And of course I’d just been having that conversation
     with Lou about people having doubles. I was unquestionably primed, as a psychologist would say, for some fleeting misperception
     of this kind to happen.
    Besides, Sara was in Boston. It was inconceivable she could be back in Manhattan without my knowing.
    My taxi also began moving, though hers had by now long disappeared from view. I had an idea. After taking out my mobile phone,
     I auto-dialed her mobile number. She replied at once.
    “Hi,” I said, “how are you? I miss you.”
    “I miss you too. What are you doing?”
    “I’m sitting in a cab between Lex and Park. Just had lunch with Lou.”
    “How is he?”
    “Fine. How are you?”
    “Busy. I’ll be back tomorrow, midafternoon.”
    “Where are you? Is that traffic I can hear in the background?”
    “Yes. I’m in a cab too.”
    “A cab where?”
    “In Boston, of course.”
    “Where in Boston?”
    “Between… I’m not sure, let me see… just coming up to the Hancock Building. Why?”
    “Oh, nothing. A coincidence, both of us being in cabs.”
    “Yes, I suppose it is rather.”
    “I love you, Sara.”
    “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Chapter 7
    I spent the rest of the afternoon reading in the sleepy postprandial haze that lunch with Lou always left me in. The more I
     read, drifting into a doze occasionally and waking with a start, the more I realized how elusive and unreliable the notion
     of coincidence was. I had long been aware that if you were really determined to believe in something, whether mysteries, conspiracies,
     or deep significance of any kind, then by and large you would always find evidence for it. When I thought about it, for example,
     I realized that I could make up a dozen coincidences right there and then, just looking around my own office in the apartment.
     Two identical pens lay at exactly the same angle on opposite sides of my desk. The color of a rug on my floor was reflected
     in the color of a car I could see out of my window. A plane crossed the sky immediately after I glimpsed the picture of a
     plane on the front page of my crumpled morning newspaper.
    But things like that didn’t count. I