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changed fact patterns, never wavering, always
    answering decisively.
    And at the end of the hour, Zigman actually said, "Very good, Mr.
    Thaler."
    It was a first.
    I left class feeling jubilant. Dex had prevailed for all of us. The
    story spread throughout the first-year class, earning him more
    points with the girls, who had long since determined that he was
    totally available.
    I told Darcy the story as well. She had moved to New York at
    about the same time I did, only under vastly different circumstances. I was there to become a lawyer; she came without
    a job, or a plan, or much money. I let her sleep on a futon in my
    dorm room until she found some roommates three American
    Airlines flight attendants looking to squeeze a fourth body into
    their heavily partitioned studio. She borrowed money from her
    parents to make the rent while she looked for a job, finally settling
    on a bartending position at the Monkey Bar. For the first time in
    our friendship, I was happy with my life in comparison to hers. I
    was just as poor, but at least I had a plan. Darcy's prospects didn't
    seem great with only a 2.9 GPA from Indiana University.
    "You're so lucky," Darcy would whine as I tried to study.
    No, luck is what you have, I'd think. Luck is buying a lottery ticket
    along with your Yoo-hoo and striking it rich. Nothing about my
    life is lucky it's all about hard work, it is all an uphill struggle. But
    of course, I never said that. Just told her that things would soon
    turn around for her.
    And sure enough, they did. About two weeks later a man waltzed
    into the Monkey Bar, ordered a whiskey sour, and began to chat
    Darcy up. By the time he finished his drink, he had promised her a
    job at one of Manhattan's top PR firms. He told her to come in for
    an interview, but that he would (wink, wink) make sure that she
    got the job. Darcy took his business card, had me revise her
    resume, went in for the interview, and got an offer on the spot.
    Her starting salary was seventy thousand dollars. Plus an expense
    account. Practically what I would make if I did well enough in
    school to get a job with a New York firm.
    So while I sweated it out and racked up debt, Darcy began her
    glamorous PR career. She planned parties, promoted the season's
    latest fashion trends, got plenty of free everything, and dated a
    string of beautiful men. Within seven months, she left the flight
    attendants in the dust and moved in with her coworker Claire, a
    snobbish, well-connected girl from Greenwich.
    Darcy tried to include me in her fast-track life, although I seldom
    had time to go to her events or her parties or her blind-date setups
    with guys she swore were "total hotties" but that I knew were
    simply her castoffs.
    Which brings me back to Dex. I raved about him to Darcy and
    Claire, told them how unbelievable he was smart, handsome,
    funny. In retrospect I'm not sure why I did it. In part because it
    was true. But perhaps I was a little jealous of their glamorous life
    and wanted to juice mine up a bit. Dex was the best thing in my
    arsenal.
    "So why don't you like him?" Darcy would ask.
    "He's not my type," I'd say. "We're just friends."
    Which was the truth. Sure, there were moments when I felt a
    flicker of interest or a quickening of my pulse as I sat near Dex.
    But I remained vigilant not to fall for him, always reminding
    myself that guys like Dex only date girls like Darcy.
    It wasn't until the following semester that the two met.
    A group of
    us from school, including Dex, planned an impromptu Thursday
    evening out. Darcy had been asking to meet Dex for weeks, so I
    phoned her and told her to be at the Red Lion at eight.
    She
    showed up, but Dex did not. I could tell Darcy viewed the whole
    outing as wasted effort, complaining that the Red Lion wasn't her
    scene, that she was over these grungy under-grad bars (which she
    had been into just a few short months ago), that the band sucked,
    and could we please leave and go somewhere nicer where