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ahead.”
    â€œYou want one?”
    â€œNo, thanks. I quit last year.”
    â€œOh, my God I would give anything on earth to be able to quit. How’d you do it?”
    â€œIt wasn’t that big a deal. I just stopped smoking. I didn’t smoke much to begin with. Rosie was all flipped about it, told me that if I kept smoking I wouldn’t grow old enough to be a grandmother because I’d be dead. You know, the first week’s a bitch; after that, the self-righteousness carried me through. I have one every few weeks.”
    â€œThat’s amazing. See, I don’t have the merest shred of strength of character, I swear to God. Well, yeah, I do, but—like, for instance I can weave all day every day, but say I start eating, there’s no stopping me; it’s like there’s this savage pig animal in my heart that emerges roaring ‘more more more,’ and I feel if I stop eating I’ll die; the only way to stop me once I get going would be to shoot me with a tranquilizer gun like the ones they use on elephants at the zoo.”
    â€œDo you drink much?”
    â€œNot particularly. Do you?”
    Elizabeth shrugged. “Off and on.” Mostly on. She smiled. “Would you like another?”
    â€œAre you going to have one?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œLet’s take them out to the porch.”
    It was warm and blue outside; the wind had died down.
    â€œI wouldn’t sit in that chair if I were you.” Rae stopped in mid-squat above the folding chair. “It’s a pain. It looks nice, doesn’t it, but it’ll turn on you, like a Venus’s flytrap. Here, we’ll sit on the swing.”
    â€œThis is a great place you’ve got.”
    â€œYeah, thanks.” They looked out to the yard, at the trees, rosebushes, flower beds, vegetable garden, Rosie’s two-wheeler lying on its side by the gate.
    â€œDo you have a man?” Rae asked, lighting another cigarette.
    â€œWell, no one special. I see this man named Gordon a couple of times a week, but I also see other guys. How ‘bout you?”
    â€œI’ve only been here a week. But—I sort of like that guy who bartends at Mickey’s—you know him? That guy Brian, tall, reddish beard? Kind of funky genteel?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œBut I’m trying to take it slow, see, romance is not my strong suit. It brings out my most foolish, self-destructive tendencies. I always get in way over my head; I get strung out, totally obsessive. Like, for instance, one of the reasons I left New York was to get away from my last boyfriend, who was a shit of a shit of a shit, a liar, a two-timer, but funny, you see, and cute. And I kept thinking I’d change him, my great love for him would cause God to restore his glorious gift of sight and all that. He’d make progress, he’d start talking about getting married, and then—it was like Charlie Brown and the football, you know? How Lucy always cons him into kicking the football, promising that she won’t pull it away at the last second? Well, he was Lucy, and I was Charlie Brown, and no matter how many times I ended up lying on my back, humiliated, I still fuckin’ wanted the guy.” She shook her head.
    â€œI was like that all through high school, all through college.”
    â€œAnd you’re not any more?”
    â€œI haven’t been in love in so long. But I don’t think so. I have less tolerance now. And enormous pride.”
    â€œThat’s how I want to be. But, see, I’m extremely ill, mentally; like, for instance, I didn’t leave that guy in New York my phone number, and he doesn’t know where I live, but every time I go into town and see a green Beetle, I think, ‘He’s found me, he’s come to claim me, he’s come to his senses’; and, see, if I had him, if I got him, I don’t think I’d really want him. He’s not