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have a reputation.”
    “Do I?” He smirked, not looking at me as he drove. “And that didn’t chase you away?”
    “I trust myself. I trust my instincts and my resolve. You just make me curious is all.”
    He shrugged. “What do you think your reputation is?”
    “I don’t have one.”
    “Of course you do. Everyone does. When people talk about Monica, what do they say, besides that she’s beautiful?”
    I let the compliment slide. Coming from someone who had almost made his way into my pants, it didn’t mean much. “I guess they say I’m ambitious. I hope they say I’m talented. My friend Darren would say I’m cold.”
    “Did he try to get you into bed, too?”
    “Shut up.” He glanced at me and we smiled at each other. “I was with him for six and a half years, so it’s not like he had to try for a long time.”
    “Was it a hard breakup?” He stopped at a light and turned his gaze to me, ready to offer me sympathy or words of wisdom.
    “No. It was the easiest thing we ever did.” I couldn’t discern what he was thinking from the way he looked at me, but he got serious, draining his tone of all flirtation.
    “Easy for you ?”
    “Both. It was dying for a long time.”
    He looked out his window, rubbing his lips with two fingertips.
    “You want to say something you’re not saying,” I said. “I don’t want to be your girlfriend, so being honest isn’t going to come back and bite you on the ass.”
    The Stock, and my car, were a block away. He pulled up to the curb. He put the Mercedes in park but didn’t turn the key.
    “You really want to know?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Why?”
    “Because you make me curious.”
    He smirked. “My wife and I were married that long. It wasn’t easy.” He rubbed the steering wheel, and I realized he regretted answering even the first part of the question. It was too late for me to give up on him now, so I waited until he said, “She left and took everything with her.”
    “I don’t understand. Are you broke?”
    He put the car into drive and turned to me. “She didn’t take a dime. She took everything that mattered .”
    I felt sorry and then I felt stupid for feeling any kind of sympathy. I wanted to hold his hand and tell him he’d get over it someday, but nothing could have been less appropriate.
    “I’m kinda hungry,” I said. “There’s this food truck thing on First and Olive. In a parking lot? You can come if you want.”
    “It’s four in the morning.”
    “Don’t come. Your call.”
    “You’re a tough customer. Anyone ever tell you that?”
    I shrugged. I really was hungry, and nothing sounded better than a little Kogi kimchi right then.

twelve
    J onathan was right in mentioning the time. Four in the morning was pretty late, as evidenced by the fact that he found a place for the car half a block away. We walked into the lot, against the traffic of twenty- and thirty-something partiers as they filtered out, one third more sober than they had been when they got there, carrying food folded in wax paper or swishing around eco-friendly containers. The lot was smallish, being in the middle of downtown and not in front of a Costco. The only parked vehicles lined the chain link fence, brightly painted trucks spewing luscious smells from all over the globe. My Kogi truck was there, as well as a gourmet popcorn truck, artisanal grilled cheese, lobster poppers, ice cream, sushi, and Mongolian barbecue. The night’s litter dotted the asphalt, hard white from the brash floodlights brought by the truck owners. The truck stops were informal and gathered by tweet and rumor. Each truck brought their own tables and chairs, garbage pail, and lights. The customers came between midnight and whenever.
    I scanned the lot for someone I knew, hoping I’d find someone to say hello to on one hand and wishing Jonathan and I could stay alone on the other.
    “My Kogi truck is over there,” I said.
    “I’m going to Korea next week. The last think I need is to