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an old fedora. You don’t see men wearing hats like that anymore. That’s the first thing I thought. Then I noticed the boots he was wearing. They were like rubber fishing boots, going all the way up to his knees. They didn’t go with the rest of his outfit, but with all the snow, what the hell.
    He was looking at me. He smiled.
    Before I could smile back, the woman gave me the phone.
    “Alex, is that you?”
    “Natalie. I’m in the lobby.”
    “I’m in room 601. Come on up.”
    “The top floor. I’m on my way.”
    I hung up the phone. I thanked the woman at the desk and headed for the elevator. My throat was dry.
    I pressed the elevator button and waited. Then the door opened and I got in. The old man was right behind me.
    I pressed six and asked him which floor he needed.
    “Six is good,” the man said.
    I nodded and looked up at the row of numbers above the door. The door closed. I couldn’t help noticing the man was looking right at me. It’s the one thing you don’t do in an elevator.
    I looked back at him. He smiled again. Up close, I saw he was a little older than I had first thought. He had gray eyes with red rims, and a dark little mustache that had gone too thin. His lips were purple.
    I returned his smile, then looked away. The elevator door closed. He kept looking at me.
    I cleared my throat.
    “Do you like my hat?” he said.
    “Excuse me?” I said, looking at him again.
    “Do you like my hat?”
    I didn’t know what to say. The elevator was moving now. “Yes,” I finally said. “I do.”
    “It’s rather old,” he said. He kept looking me right in the eye. He kept smiling.
    “I figured.”
    “Would you like to know how old my hat is?”
    The elevator came to a stop.
    “No, sir,” I said. “I don’t need to know that.”
    “Very well.”
    The door opened. I got out. Room 601 was just a few steps away, so I didn’t have time to notice that the old man was still standing in the elevator. I was just about to knock, my hand in midair, when I looked back. He had stayed in the elevator, one arm extended to keep the door from closing. He was still smiling. Finally, he gave me a little nod of his head, pulled his arm away, and let the doors close in front of him.
    I stood there for a moment, trying to figure it out. Then I thought, to hell with it. An old man slightly off his nut. Never mind.
    His eyes, though. They were clear. They were focused.
    Never mind, Alex.
    I knocked lightly on the door. Natalie opened it and let me in. She was wearing blue jeans and a red sweater. I had never seen her in red before. “You look great,” I said.
    “Your hair,” she said.
    “Oh God.” I touched it, like I was verifying it was still on my head. “Okay, here’s the thing. The box said it was supposed to look totally natural.”
    “You dyed your hair.”
    “No, no. It wasn’t dye. Come on. It was, what do you call it, a rinse.”
    She came over to me and put her arms around my neck. “You dyed your hair,” she said. “Who’d you do that for, you jackass?”
    I wrapped her up. “The box said—”
    “Yeah, I know,” she said. Then she kissed me. Everything seemed to run downstream at that point, right onto the bed. I lifted the red sweater over her arms and then she went to work on my shirt buttons.
    “I wasn’t going to do this,” she said.
    “Why not?”
    “Because. God, Alex. I think we need to slow down a little bit.”
    “Too late.”
    “Why does this happen?” she said. “Every time I see you?”
    She seemed genuinely angry this time. At me or at herself. I didn’t know. I held her down and kissed her hard, and then everything happened again, just like the first time and every other time after that, like there was nothing either of us could do to stop it, even if we wanted to.
    Afterward, as we were both lying there in the tangled-up sheets, I looked out the window and saw the snow falling. “Oh great,” I said. “Just what we need.”
    She didn’t say