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well… I just couldn’t see myself going through ten to twenty more years of a totally
     dull compatible marriage with a boring lifeless man and most of those years without
     the distractions of kids—I in fact thought it’d make me nuts—I know, I know, I’ve
     made my point all too clear and probably contradicted myself several times and sound
     to you repellently faddish, so excuse me.” “It’s not that,” and she says “Not what?”
     “Everything you said, and I’m sorry for what you both have gone through,” and she
     says “Don’t worry about that, Josh finally realized with me our marriage was a tremendous
     mistake and is much happier with the situation now, but can you—I mean, you can be
     sure, to get back to what we were originally saying—in fact I still wear it, left
     hand, but not anymore the engagement ring, to feel safer on the street as you said—but
     that gives away what I was about to say, which is that I always wore my wedding band,
     no matter what I thought of my marriage, and I also once lost it but bought a new
     one in days,” and I say “So you think it odd my wife doesn’t replace hers?” “Not odd
     or no odder than that you don’t encourage her to or get her a new one—after all, yours
     sounds like a wonderful marriage,” and I say “It is, with minor problems of course.”
     “Like what?” “Like what everybody must go through when they don’t go through real
     marital problems—minor, too normal to describe—but if I just went out and got her
     a wedding band it would have to match mine like the original.” “Not really; mine didn’t—though
     if you insisted, then just as easy: you show yours and they match it.” “I don’t have
     her size.” “Ask her—eliminates the surprise, but you forfeit that,” and I say “Who
     knows his or her finger size? For it wasn’t that simple when we got our fingers measured
     by the man we ordered them from.” “Then you go back to him and he probably has a record
     of her size, so you can still pull off the surprise.” “Fingers don’t expand?” “If
     you get a lot heavier perhaps, but the way you spoke about her, she hasn’t.” “She’s
     actually lost weight, and she was never heavy, since we married.” “Then if she hasn’t
     lost a lot there should be no problem, or who knows, because maybe she likes not wearing
     one.” “What do you mean?” and she says “Some people don’t like wearing anything on
     their fingers or around their necks and wrists and so on.” “That’s what you meant?
     It didn’t seem so,” and she says “Then maybe I don’t know what I meant—really, what’s
     the difference? Because there was nothing to it,” and I say “Of course, that’s not
     what I was saying—by the way, how’d you get my number?” and she says “Well, it’s a
     story—I called your school—” “How’d you know I worked there?” “I bumped into Ronnie
     Salter a few years ago—that’s what I should have started with—” “Ronnie, how’s he
     doing?” and she says “Oh, gosh, I forget—driving a cab, maybe not that—a fire fighter,
     did he say? I really forget, but I asked him, or he just came out and told me where
     you taught, but the school always rang your office and nobody was in, till I finally
     got wise and asked for your department and called it and they said you had exactly
     two office hours a week and they couldn’t give out your home phone number, but it
     was listed in Manhattan Information under your wife’s maiden name, and they gave me
     it. I thought it’d be nice renewing contact with you—I hate losing touch with people
     I truly considered close friends—how many are there of those? And we go back nearly
     thirty years.” “More I bet, and that’s very nice of you.” “And so I thought we could
     get together again. I’d love hearing about you, your wife and what she does, and children
     and things,” and I say “No, it’s