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direction to a table in the back, where I threw the apron over the chair, took a seat, and surveyed the room. This is where I was at my best, in a crowded room of strangers.
    I had oftentimes contemplated a career with the CIA or FBI, in large part due to this game I would play called detective. Beth and I played it all the time, whenever we went to a restaurant with her family. It was easy; you simply had to call a table. Upon entering a dining establishment, search the room, hone in on a specific table, and come up with the most accurate depiction of its inhabitants. That meant, by the end of the night, we would have to know how the people were connected and the various elements of that connection—love, hate, friendship, family, turmoil, or strife. I was not the easiest opponent to play this game with because I never believed I was wrong. Even if Beth was certain, even if she swore she knew the people, after she heard my argument and supporting evidence, she always changed her mind and ended up agreeing with me anyway.
    Take the time we watched a couple kissing throughout the entire meal. Beth thought they were a happily married couple. She said, “They’re madly in love after twenty years, three kids, a dog, and a house with a big yard.”
    Beth didn’t stand a chance.
    “Come on, Jessie, look how happy they are.”
    “First of all, married couples usually aren’t that happy. Statistically, the only people that are that happy are the ones that are having affairs, and to prove my point, he’s wearing a wedding band. Take a look, she’s not.”
    Beth’s face moved through varying emotions before settling on disbelief. “She’s the girlfriend,” I said. “The wife you’re talking about, well, she’s at home, probably watching those three kids, and walking the dumb dog.”
    Beth was dumbstruck. I said, “Didn’t we just watch Falling in Love together? DeNiro and Streep had the same look in their eyes and they weren’t married.”
    Jonas sat down with a tray of food just as I was about to call the table beside us. There were two of them, a man, probably around forty, a girl maybe Jonas’s age. This one was tricky. She could have been his daughter; she could have been his girlfriend. He was good-looking enough to get away with such a pretty, young girl by his side. I just wasn’t a hundred percent sure of the body language between them. She seemed sad, and he was doing his best to console her. We were in a hospital, though, and there was a lot of that going on.
    “What are you doing?” Jonas asked, a puzzled look on his face.
    “Shhhh,” I said. Obviously, he didn’t know that the agent could not be interrupted or the call might be inaccurate. Thinking these things, I scared myself at times.
    “What are you up to?” he asked again, impatiently starting with his hamburger. When I waved him off with the flick of my hand, he turned to his food. I couldn’t believe the crap he put on it, mayonnaise, hot peppers, loads of ketchup, mustard. No wonder he had a queasy stomach.
    The man at the next table drew a hand out toward the girl. Without hesitation, she took it in her own. I watched as he cupped it in his, feeling the tingly goose bumps travel down my spine. She wiped a tear from her eye, and I began to feel terrible for watching; but like a car wreck, I couldn’t turn away. It was a hospital, I reminded myself, sad stuff was bound to happen.  Still, I always shamed myself a little bit by watching. A very little bit. Maybe her mother was dying, maybe she was dying, or Grandma Bessie from Seattle. This one was hard to pin down so I left it, for the time being.
    “Drink your milk. You’re a growing girl,” he said to me, as I focused both my eyes and ears on him.
    “Do I look like I need more growing?” I asked.
    When I saw his eyes move from my face downward, I decided it was okay that he didn’t answer.
    “You’re always trying to act all cool and macho, Jonas, but I know beneath all that med