The rain finally made good on its threat, breaking into a gentle, steady shower at ten minutes after midnight. Dale was still awake, puttering around the kitchen now that her grandmother had finally gone to sleep, leaving her the fleeting illusion of having some space and privacy to call her own. Dale was making the most of it, which, at twelve-thirty in an apartment that stood virtually unchanged since 1968, consisted of making a cup of tea and listening to the rain. She danced around the kitchen a little while the water heated, and inspected her grandmother’s tea assortment, arranged by some system into no less than eight separate receptacles that lined the counter and adorned the ancient range. The only decipherable, branded tea bags were in a screw-top jar that had probably once held jelly; next to that was a second recycled jar stuffed with artificial sugar packets, which Dale had watched her grandmother steal, stealthily but unapologetically, from the diner where they had lunch once a week.

“Why should I buy that stuff?” she’d demanded, when Dale suggested the moral grey area in her action. “The only one who ever uses it is Kitty, and she doesn’t come to visit but once in a while. I’m not going to pay for a whole box of it!” Dale shrugged and silently conceded the point, but she kept an alert eye trained for any suggestion that her grandmother had extended the help-yourself policy to include salt-shakers or cutlery.

In the coffee pot there was about two inches of dregs-coffee sitting cold. Dale had once made the mistake of pouring this coffee out, sending her grandmother into a near-apoplectic state. Once she’d calmed down, her grandmother had explained that the coffee was to be recycled into iced coffee – it was still good, after all! – and showed her the jar in the refrigerator that had probably once held spaghetti sauce where she accumulated the leftovers.

“The Depression,” Dale’s mother said, when Dale made mention of this and other behaviors that struck her as irretrievably strange. “She’s always been that way, because of the Depression.”

“Are you going down today?” Dale’s grandmother asked the question as though people who were not 90 years old spent all Saturday sitting in a faded apartment. As though Dale was not holding her purse and putting on her coat and standing next to the front door.

“Yes,” said Dale. “You know Sandra’s in town; I’m meeting her for brunch in 20 minutes.”

“Wait, wait, wait – take some bottles with you to Associated,” her grandmother struggled to her feet and went rummaging in the coat closet, shunting plastic water bottles one by one into a grocery bag. “You get a nickel apiece for them.”

“Here, let me do it,” Dale said, with a touch of impatience. She was already running a little late, to be honest, and was pretty sure the 5-cent return process involved standing in a long line with a bunch of Chinese women with shopping carts full of salvaged recycling that they used to supplement their income. On her way out she deposited the bag of bottles in the building’s communal recycling bin, counting them carefully and pocketing $1.20 to give to her grandmother later.

“The Depression,” her sister said, over brunch. “Mom says it makes her weird. They had nothing, I guess, when she was so young. It leaves an impression.”

“You aren’t living with her,” Dale said. “It’s beyond weird.”

“She’s just old,” Sandra said. “So many things are beyond her control. She has to feel in charge of something.”

“Well, she’s not in charge of me,” said Dale, thinking about the bottles and feeling petty, but still incapable of not-being petty. “That line would have taken me half an hour to get through. That’s like getting paid $2.50 an hour.”

“Maybe that was a lot back then,” Sandra said. “And isn’t living with your grandmother to save money a lot like turning in bottles for change? It’s not pleasant, but it’s a living.” Dale had nothing to say to that. She encouraged Sandra to talk about her extravagant trip to Italy for the remainder of brunch, and made a hasty exit after they’d settled the check.

She walked home feeling gloomy; the sudden overcasting of the afternoon sky only deepened the feeling. This was not uncommon, in fact, she was accustomed to intermittent spells of sadness, anger, and generally negative feelings, but this was the first one she’d had living with her grandmother, and not having a place to hole up alone and wait out the bad mood was wearing on her. She continued to walk, restlessly, without any clear destination.

 Josh’s eyes were puffy from crying, deep set into his face and glaring out at me for exposing him to this unpleasant depth of emotion. I should have been worried about pushing him too far, but those reddened eyes, sunk into his face under pressure of loneliness could only inspire pity, contempt – never fear. So another man who loved me passed noisily from my life, and I can rest easier knowing there will not be many more to come.

In the meantime, I have so many things to see to: there are coffee mugs to rearrange and bits of broken jewelry to be surreptitiously fished off the sidewalk and worked into the lining of one’s purse. There are lists to be made and crumpled in pockets and forgotten until later and measured against reality. There is fake hair to be woven into real hair and artfully covered with artificial butterflies. All this will occupy me until it is time to attend my going-away party.

You think I’ve forgotten, but I never forget anything except the really unpleasant stuff. This makes me more predisposed to care for you, if you care, which you don’t for all practical purposes but still do a little. I should hate you but already I’ve forgotten the time you missed my birthday and the things you said about my body. Today there are train schedules to memorize and cookies to steal and stash away in drawers and stacks upon stacks upon stacks of newspapers.

I call it, “making preparations.” For my final trick I’ve saved something really special; ladies and gentlemen, you’re never going to believe what’s coming next.

New York City. He was a guy dressed business-casual with a blue messenger bag, walking south on 5th Ave alongside his daughter on a pink scooter. She was heading north, mid-20’s, long blondish hair, off season tan, business-casual in a black skirt and black flats - the two of you crossed paths just off the SE corner of 15th St. I was waiting for the light and happened to see first she looked back and then he did, a second too late to catch it.

If you’re both available, I suggest you meet back there tonight, shall we say 6:45? It can be a lonely city, and I think you guys really had something.

Our eyes met, and he saw he had mistaken me; I was not the lost and helpless woodland creature he had initially taken me for. I was a sly mammal, the great adaptor. I was a raccoon who paid for her own coffee.

My most recent nightmare involved amputees and cannibalism. I was the amputee, and the cannibals were three dirty backwoods men and my mother. They were eating the parts they amputated from me. The excision of my body parts wasn’t painful, but as I lay there on a filthy mattress following each physical reduction, my mind was consumed with panicked thoughts of all the things I would never be able to do again. 

I woke up alone, shaky and profoundly distressed. Usually I like to sleep by myself, but at that moment I wished very much that someone were there to offer me comfort. With limited options available, I lay one of my pillows next to me, and assigned it a face.  

“I had a terrible dream,” I told the pillow. 

“It’s all right now, baby,” the pillow said. “I’m here and I won’t let anything happen to you.” I hugged the pillow close and, vastly reassured, soon fell into a peaceful sleep. 

In the morning, as I made the bed, I straightened that pillow into place with particular affection. “Thank you for last night,” I said, “I don’t know what I would have done if you weren’t there.” I gave the pillow a little kiss, and then smoothed it away. The pillow remained silent but looked at me as if to say its whole purpose in life was to make my sleeping hours more comfortable, I shouldn’t even mention it. 

That night I went to sleep with the pillow by my side, a preemptive strike against nightmares. I had no bad dreams, and woke to the pillow gently caressing my cheek. “Sorry,” it whispered, “Did I wake you?” 

“It’s OK,” I murmured, “I have to be up in a minute anyway.” 

“Don’t get up,” the pillow said. “Stay here with me today. Order Chinese food and finish the novel you’ve been reading at bedtime, and never leave the apartment or your pajamas.” I wasn’t going to listen; I even made it onto my feet. But the look the pillow was giving me when I stood was too enticing, and I found myself right back in bed again. The pillow and I had a lovely day together.  

Then it was the weekend. I had forgotten about my plans with Derek on Saturday night, and when I remembered I wasn’t as excited as usual. He took me to an exclusive screening, part of the independent film festival. When he put his arm around me in the theater it felt unnatural, but I tried to behave as though nothing was wrong. My mind kept wandering back to bed. All I wanted was to lie down and press my face into the pillow. 

Derek walked me home. When we stopped at my doorstep, instead of inviting him in I told him that I thought we should take a step back. I just couldn’t carry on with him, having stumbled across something real. I could barely wait to get to bed, didn’t even bother to wash off all my makeup and brush my teeth.  

“You’ve been with someone else, haven’t you?” the pillow said. 

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said.  

“Don’t lie,” the pillow said. “I can smell him on you.” 

“All right,” I said, “I was. I swear though, I thought about being here the whole time. You’re the one I want.” The pillow was cold and silent, and I knew I had ruined yet another good thing.  

Jay finished typing up his weekly report, and hesitated with his finger above the ‘send’ key. He withdrew his hand and rubbed his eyes, but when he opened them again, the report was still there, hanging in the meta-space of his computer, silently accusing him…of what? Jay didn’t know, exactly, but he still felt guilty.

He was used to following orders. After 10 years as an agent, he had grown accustomed to “need to know” situations, was comfortable with them. Not needing to know was a relief, really. He was only there to do – to survey and report – and he had become very, very good at it.

So why the sudden need to understand the bigger picture? It could only be his subject, so completely unlike anyone he’d been assigned in over a decade of service. In his time, Jay had shadowed terrorists, anarchists, teachers, political candidates, cultists, and members of other agencies, foreign and domestic. His current subject was none of these things – after six months of constant surveillance he was sure of it. She was just a woman. A photographer living and working in New York City. Her life was relatively simple and closely followed a routine. On days she had work shoots, she photographed lipstick or designer shoes in light-controlled environments, and on days she didn’t, she often wandered the streets for hours, shooting candidly for little besides her own gratification. Aside from the occasional architectural shot, she photographed nothing that could be a target of international interest. Even if some mysterious agency had employed her to collect street shots of NY at random, for a sinister purpose beyond Jay’s understanding, he’d monitored her electronic correspondence for half a year – the pictures never left her computer. She was the only one who saw them.

Over 10 years as an agent and nearly a decade of police service before that, Jay had internalized the idea that there was always a reason for things. His agency wouldn’t have him on a subject for six months if she wasn’t a player in something major. In all his years of service, Jay had never once demanded an answer from the powers above.

He pressed delete, obliterating the report from the screen, poured himself a drink, and sat reveling in a strange, peaceful feeling, waiting to find out what would happen, now that he had.

“Are you attached to your eyebrows?” she asked.

We were all out to dinner: Jake and I, Marissa and her girlfriend Jaclyn, Alexis and a new guy she’s been seeing named Joel. Normally I’m not much of one for fusion restaurants, but Oh Shenz! had exquisite decor and an eggplant appetizer that made me reconsider my whole outlook on eggplant. The owner, Seline, is a transvestite, perfectly appointed in brocade satin with a Mandarin collar and long hair in a high ponytail that fell across her broad shoulders so naturally it made my teeth ache. She came over to chat and bought us a round of the house special - ginger-infused Snapdragons.   

After dinner Alexis and Joel wandered away, entwined with the clingy adoration of new coupledom. Jaclyn and Marissa strolled with us for several blocks, mostly so we could confer over how much better Joel was than the losers Alexis usually imposed on our dinner gatherings. We all agreed she should keep him, and then parted ways, they to their subway and Jake and I toward my apartment.  

“Wait,” I said, and stopped walking abruptly. Jake inadvertently outpaced me by a few steps, then returned to where I was standing, the faint concern in his expression triggered by the faint distress in mine.  

“What is it?” he said, worried. 

“I want a strawberry glazed donut,” I said, “and coffee.” Jake laughed, and kissed me, but I felt no less lost. We walked past my apartment to the Dunkin’ Donuts around the corner. 

“I love you,” he said, as we stood in line, contemplating the midnight donut selection. His arms were around my waist and we slouched together, a precarious agreement to stand balanced between us.  

“I challenge,” I said. I stepped away from him and up to the counter. I ordered a medium coffee and the strawberry one I wanted and a chocolate glazed I didn’t really want, because it was cheaper to get the 2-donuts-and-a-coffee combo than to just get one donut and a coffee separately. The man behind the counter began to assemble my order, and I returned to lean against Jake, but he was standing on his own now, and didn’t lean back. 

“You can challenge,” he said. “But you realize if you’re wrong, you lose a turn, don’t you?” I told him I knew the rules.  

Jake didn’t say anything else until we got home, but he ate most of the chocolate glazed donut on the way. I blew on my coffee, and tore a chunk out of the strawberry glazed donut, and tried to fill myself with it, which sort of worked. As soon as I opened the door, he went into the bedroom to find proof that he loved me. It wasn’t too long before he called me in to look at it. 

“OK,” I said, “You love me, and I lose a turn. But you couldn’t have thought I would just accept it.”

My hair was falling out. Not in big chunks, but a little at a time, and faster every day. Nearly every time I touched it, I’d come away with a couple of strands, so for now I was trying to touch it as little as possible. What hair remained was taking on a crusty, nestlike appearance which I sensed was beginning to contribute to social pariahdom, so I knew a better solution was in order.

I’ve never been much of one to get my cards read, but the place didn’t look like the average street psychic storefront. Looking through the all-seeing-eye that was gold-etched into the front window, I could see dusty shelves stocked with herb-filled glass jars and other contents that may have been more fauna than flora.

When I entered the shop the door announced my presence with a long creak, and something I had initially taken for a large wooden carving stirred behind the counter. The woman must have been close to a hundred years old, but she moved pretty fast, especially dragging one foot, as she was. I opened my mouth to speak.

“I know why you’ve come,” she said, in a voice rough with disuse and wisdom. “You long for the love of another.”

Before I had a chance to respond, she clamped a claw-like hand around my forearm and drew me further into the shop. She scurried behind the counter and dramatically opened a secret shelf in the bookcase, revealing a row of jars, each containing a glistening heart.

“Speak,” she said, “and it shall be yours.”

I guess what I’m saying is, I agree there’s a reason for everything, including your sudden infatuation with me. I’m sorry if that seems unfair to you, but I was raised never to argue with gypsies. Besides, she had the most beautiful head of hair I’ve ever seen.