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of Blanca, if Blanca was a child. There were a few children running around, sisters of brothers, who could be Blanca or Blanca’s grandchild. The evening wore on. Many times I saw Victor and he told me that he had just seen his sister but lost her again. Then he said that he had in fact sent her over to my table not fifteen minutes ago to introduce herself, and had I not met her? I had not.
    Well, what did you think of her?
    I didn’t meet her!
    Oh, I thought you said you had.
    No, I said I had not, I had not.
    Well, that is a shame. I think she left. She told me she liked you.
    What?
    She said she wants to see you again.
    But I never met her!
    Watch it, that’s my sister you’re talking about.
    I am six foot three. I weigh 180 pounds. I have gray hair that is receded. I am not fit, but I have a naturally fast metabolism, so I am skinny. Except for my stomach.
    Blanca came in and out of my life over the next few weeks, but she never came in far enough for me to see her. I failed to meet her in so many different ways that I began to know her anyway. I knew the qualities of her particular absence. I dressed up for it. I wore a suit that I had never gotten the hang of in the seventies, but now it felt all right. It’s an unusual suit because it’s light beige, almost off-white. You don’t see that color much in big amounts, suit and jacket both. It became my uniform for not meeting Blanca.
    Was she at the Tiny Bubble Lounge last night?
    She was! Did she introduce herself?
    No.
    I told her you sometimes go there. She’s been stopping by regularly.
    I’d like to meet her.
    And she’d like to meet you.
    Victor, she’s gotta introduce herself. I see her in my dreams.
    And what does she look like?
    She’s an angel.
    That’s Blanca, that’s the one.
    Is she blond?
    No, she’s dark-haired, like me.
    A brunette.
    Well, I don’t know about that.
    You just said she was.
    Yeah, I just don’t like to hear my sister talked about that way.
    Brunette? That’s nothing bad.
    Yeah. But it’s how you said it.
    “Brunette” said by a man who has to use two hands to jerk off each night, that’s what she did to me. I knew when she was near because I started breathing harder. The whole feeling in the room changed: her smell wrapped itself around my face, and I just knew she was there and I couldn’t stop thinking she was a teenager. Even though it made no sense. The bar was full of smoke and men, but I could see her, behind someone, just out of view, in tight jeans and tennis shoes, chewing gum, with pierced ears and some kind of band holding her hair back. A ribbon or some kind of plastic band. And pierced ears. I said that already. Okay. That’s what I saw. Some may say that such a girl is not ready for a relationship with a man, especially a man in his late sixties. But to that I say: We don’t know anything. We don’t know how to cure a cold or what dogs are thinking. We do terrible things, we make wars, we kill people out of greed. So who are we to say how to love. I wouldn’t force her. I wouldn’t have to. She would want me. We would be in love. What do you know. You don’t know anything. Call me when you’ve cured AIDS, give me a ring then and I’ll listen.
    There were many times a day when I needed her. When I walked or took the bus to Deagan, when I was in motion, and when I was still. When I was inspecting purses and all of them were perfect, down to the last grommet. Day after day, no flaws, just a building tension, a growing fog that could be cut only by a backward strap or a missing buckle. Some people go on forever without flinching, without crying out. But I cried, Blanca! When the sun became unusually high and bright, or when it sank, especially when it sank far below the hills and I felt something similarly bright falling down inside of me, I called, Blanca. I called out to my own heart, as if she were within me like an egg. White like an egg and not quite ready; about to be, like an egg.
    I had never