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myself about what to do if she offered.
    She leaned against me. “It’s not raining, Matt.” It was the first time she had said my name.
    “You busy Saturday?”
    “Come on, you don’t want to wait that long.”
    She pulled my head down and kissed me. Her tongue tasted like brandy and cigarettes.
    I said, “I should go.” She tried to kiss me again. I held her shoulders, keeping her at bay. “I’m sorry, but I really need to go.”
    “Are you always so fucking controlled ?”
    “Please, Lucy, can’t you see you got me dangling by a thread?”
    She measured me for a second, then her eyes softened. “What time on Saturday?”
    ***
    The cabbie drove me home to Mission Hill. When I tried to pay him, he said it was already taken care of. Sandor again. My roommate Kreider was asleep in his ancient recliner with the TV on, three empty beer bottles and an empty pizza box beside him on the floor. I turned off the television and carried the box and bottles out to the kitchen and put them in the garbage. Kreider was a cop in the harbor patrol division. A great guy and an unapologetic slob. He wandered around the apartment leaving trash and dirty clothes and wet towels behind like a molting lizard. I cleaned up after him and tried not to complain. Two years ago he asked me if I wanted to room with him. He had a terrific deal from the landlady who loved having cops as her tenants. The apartment was much larger than my old place and the rent considerably less. I had always been frugal. I put half the money I saved on rent in the credit union and the other half in a mutual fund. In another year or two, I’d have enough to make a down payment on a house or condo of my own.
    I went to my room and tried to read, but all I could do was think about Lucy. I didn’t like her asking if I was always so controlled, but I knew I’d done the right thing. She was drunk and I wasn’t. I wanted to make love to her, not simply get laid. I was twenty-eight years old and I’d been around the block enough to know that sooner or later every romance turns into a negotiation. It’s a matter of give and take. Give too little and you breed resentments, take too little and you start feeling used. How does a candlelight dinner stack up against changing the oil in her car? Is getting a blowjob worth the same as giving her a back rub? Before long you’re both keeping a ledger. Tallying things up. I didn’t want Lucy to wake up tomorrow with a hangover, wondering if she’d given too much. I wanted her to look forward to our next date as much as I was.

Chapter 5
    Lucy
    I was tempted to call in sick the morning after my blind date with Matt, but it was the slowest time of the year in our office, so I figured I could fake it through the day. Wearing sunglasses to hide my bloodshot eyes, I poured a cup of coffee and carried it to my desk, my coworkers giving me friendly, knowing looks but no one saying a word, not like that sadistic little dwarf pounding on the inside of my skull with a hammer— Did-it-again. Did-it-again. I lit a cigarette, straightened a pile of papers, and moved it from one side of the desk to the other. I picked at the callus next to the fingernail on my left thumb and tore it off with my teeth. Anita answered the phone at her desk across the room, then buzzed my line.
    “So, how’d it go?” Jill said, all bright and cheery.
    “It was all right.”
    “That bad, huh?”
    “No, it was fine. He seems like a decent guy.”
    “Wow, you should get a job writing cards for Hallmark.”
    “What the hell do you want me to say? He’s nice. We had a good time. He’s just not…”
    “Griffin.”
    Exactly, but I wasn’t going to admit it. “It was one date, for Christ’s sake. Why do you care so much?”
    “About you ? Sometimes I wonder.”
    “I’m sorry, Jilly. I haven’t even had my coffee yet. He took me to the Café Budapest. It was lovely. They roll out the red carpet when he goes there.”
    “The red