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added these things up—his absence, his lukewarm hug—as clues to his discontent. Zachary suggested we get our coffee to-go. “Let’s walk and talk,” he said. “And drink.”
    We bought our coffee and headed outside, toward the quiet side streets. I remember I tried to take his hand and he pulled away.
    “Are you that much of a germaphobe?” I asked. He didn’t answer.
    I was still blind, you see. There is a moment, when a woman’s foolishness slips into delusion. The former is forgivable, the latter isn’t. You will never live it down. Remember that.
    Even before we got away from the noisy boulevard, Zachary began his speech. He could not even suffer a preamble. “I don’t think I can do this anymore,” he said. “Us.”
    I understood immediately; I didn’t play dumb. Unlike Dickens, who had grinned as he broke my heart, Zachary, to his credit, seemed almost ill.
    “But I thought—“
    I stopped myself. No, I would not protest, because protest would turn into blubbering, and I wouldn’t stoop so low. I was a fool, but I wasn’t crazy.
    You want to know what I was going to tell Zachary. What was it I thought? About him, about us? About myself?
    To be honest, I’m not sure what I would have said, because in that instant, I willed the original Joellyn to return: big-breasted, carefree Joellyn, the one Zachary had given his business card to, the Joellyn he had been smitten by at the bar, the one who had undressed for him, who had pretended to like whiskey. That Joellyn would take this in stride. She had gotten me into this mess, and she would get me out of it.
    “I see,” I said.
    “Please don’t be upset.” That he knew me well enough to read my bluff was a special kind of cruelty. “You can’t honestly be surprised.”
    We had reached the residential block with its wide-mouthed bungalows. For each driveway’s gleaming and silent car there was a corresponding fruit tree on the front lawn. Lemon, tangerine, kumquat. Volvo, Subaru, whimsical old BMW.
    “Come on, Joellyn,” he continued. “You don’t want me. That’s been clear from the beginning. It was a little game you were playing.”
    “It was?” I asked.
    “I played, too,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong—it was fun at first. A girl like you … “ His voice trailed off. A few weeks earlier, I might have thought he meant a beautiful, invincible girl, a girl who shouldn’t have given him a second glance. But now I knew he meant something else.
    “I’m not terrible,” I said.
    “We’re not compatible,” he replied, which didn’t contest my statement.
    “Actually, I think we get along pretty well.” I was careful not to beseech. From one of the backyards, children squealed.
    “I’m probably going to take that job,” he said finally.
    “Are you sure you want that?” I asked
    He stopped walking and held up his hands. “This is what I’m talking about. Why don’t you go find a dude who drives a Saab, Joellyn? Or a guy with an LP collection, and, I don’t know, a killer set of kitchen knives. Someone who isn’t into Mexico. Someone who doesn’t wear wretched cargos.” His voice had squeaked into a nasal pitch, and his fingers air-quoted.
    “Wow,” I said.
    He sighed, suddenly blushing. “God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—“
    “I’d impersonate you too,” I said, “if it weren’t so difficult.” My voice was like bathwater I’d neglected to drain: cold as it was flat. “Do you want to know why it’s difficult, Zachary?”
    “Why?”
    “Because you’re invisible.” I smiled. “You’re nothing.”
    “You’re a bitch,” Zachary said, and I shrugged. If things weren’t over between us before, they were now. I took a sip of my coffee, and waited for him to walk away. He did.
    You want to yell, “Come back, Zachary! Please come back!”
    So do I.

    P eople say all kinds of nonsense about loss: When one door closes, another opens. Everything happens for a reason. This, too, shall pass. A girl will