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he told me, had been a disaster. Dana the d-girl had ordered a salad and spent the entire dinner shifting the leaves around her plate and complaining about, in order, her producer bosses, her most recent ex-boyfriend, her father, and her allergies. “By coffee, I was feeling like I was responsible not only for my entire gender, but the atmosphere, too,” he’d said. But it hadn’t stopped him from lining up somebody else. Actually, two somebody elses—a pediatric resident on Friday, for drinks, and a public relations executive for Saturday-afternoon coffee. I’d advised him on clothing, scents, and topics of conversation. Make eye contact, I said. Look at them like they matter, like they’re the only one in the room. He’d thanked me and mailed me a check. No matter what my grandmother wanted to believe, it was a business relationship, nothing more.
    I took the telephone, assuming that it was Gary, wanting to debrief in real time. “Ruthie?”
    His voice, as always, went straight to my heart and my knees, making the first one pound and the second two quiver. I sank onto Grandma’s fringed apricot velvet fainting couch, displacing two doilies on my way down. “Rob,” I said faintly. “How are you?”
    “Good,” he said. Then, “Busy.”
    “I bet.” I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to sound snide or sympathetic. My voice cracked on the last word. Pull yourself together, I told myself sternly, picking doilies up off the floor.
    “With a new show, actually,” he said. “Oh?” My tone was polite. I’d quit reading Variety in the wake of our whatever-it-was, and I’d assumed that Rob was still working on The Girls’ Room, which should just be gearing up for its next season.
    I leaned my cheek against the soft nap of the couch as he went into his pitch: a family dramedy he was preparing for pilot season. Hot mom, recovering alcoholic dad, dysfunctional sisters who managed a Miami lingerie boutique.
    “Are you interested?” “Do you mean, would I watch it?”
    He chuckled. “No. I know you’re not that much of masochist. Would you write it? We could use you, Ruth. We could use your voice.”
    “You can’t have it,” I blurted.
    Rob’s laughter was warm and indulgent, the sound of a father’s amusement at a cute but willful child. “Well, not for keeps. But you’re not working . . .” He let his voice trail off, turning it into a question. When I didn’t reply, he pressed on. “Look, you can’t just sit around all day. There’s only so many laps you can swim.” His voice softened. I pictured him in one of his ratty see-through T-shirts, five days’ worth of stubble, his glasses, and his rare, delicious grin. “And I miss working with you. We were good together.”
    “We were nothing,” I said. My grandmother was staring at me from the kitchen with a cordial glass of crème de menthe in her hand, eyebrows raised.
    “Ruth... look. I’m sorry for what happened. I’m sorry if it gave you the wrong idea.”
    “Sure thing. Well, okay then! Thanks for calling!” I kept my voice upbeat. Maybe Grandma would think my gentleman caller was a telemarketer.
    “I’ll take that as a no, then,” he said. “No,” I said, and then, because I was nothing if not polite, I said, “No thank you.”
    “Big surprise, Ruth,” he said. Then he was gone.
    I swam for hours that night, tracing the tiled lap lane back and forth until my arms were numb. When I got home, Lonelyguy had e-mailed. “Is it just me,” he’d asked, “or is every woman out there a freak?”
    “I’m not,” I whispered at the screen. But I didn’t write it. I typed in “See you tomorrow,” shut off the laptop, and crawled into bed.
    The next morning I drove back to the Beverly Center for a new swimsuit, thinking that maybe I’d stop by the pet shop and see if the skinny puppy was still there. I was walking down the bright, bustling corridor toward the escalators when I saw a familiar figure—long, denim-clad legs; skinny