“Okay, then,” Tris says. “I believe you.”

She takes her gum from her mouth and presses it against the wall behind me, pinning me there with her upraised arms. Then she presses against me and my eyes are still open and they see her coming in and HOLY SHIT triple squared, she says, “Kiss your partner’s upper lip.” She kisses my upper lip, softly, gently. “That’s yang.” Her lips move down. “Kiss your partner’s bottom lip.” She kisses my bottom lip, more urgently. “That’s yin.” She pulls away but her left hand is now under the back of my shirt, pressed against the small of my spine. “Start by opening up your chakras, like that.”

I don’t say anything. My lips remain parted, not sure if the lesson is over.

“Or,” Tris says, “you can try this one.” With both hands, she pulls my face to hers. She sucks my upper lip between her lips, and then her tongue is in my mouth, caressing the middle area between my upper lip and my gums. I never even noticed that area was there. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m not frigid. “That’s the frenulum,” she says when she’s done. She pats down her hair. “That little connective tissue inside your mouth. It’s a Hot Spot. You can use that one on Nick, you have my permission. I don’t think I ever used that one on him so it’s not like you’d be copying me.”

I’m standing against the wall, unsure of what to say or do. Now I’m sure I’m in a dream.

Tris says, “Or you can be inventive. Go on. Try me.”

What the hell? I turn my head at an angle and lean in to her face. I place my hands on her hips, press against her. Slowly, I kiss her upper lip, yang, suck on her lower lip, yin, but instead of following up with tongue, which her mouth definitely seems to want, I return to her upper lip and give it some gentle bites.

She pulls back. “Nip kissing! Good instinct, Norah. See? You’re not frigid. Gotta be careful with that one, though. Only do it with a partner you trust. Those teeth can get dangerous with the wrong person.”

“How do you know so much?” I ask her. I mean, I know she’s a groupie bitch, but she’s barely voting age—she hasn’t had that much time to acquire so much knowledge.

“Hello, bitch, I can Google sexual techniques just as well as you could if you wanted. It’s not brain science here.” She turns to leave and reaches for the door handle, then pauses and turns back around to face me. “But, Norah?”

“Yes?” I whisper.

“Get to know him first. You and he are not the one-night-stand types. You’re all sensitive and shit. Don’t go too fast.”

And she’s gone.

“Bye, Tris!” I gasp.

From the open door, I see her breeze past Nick on her way out of the restaurant. She tells him, “I told you that you’d find her someplace! Good job! And good luck with that one. You’re gonna need it. I almost feel sorry for you.”

I feel less sorry for Nick now. Maybe he’s not some poor schmuck. I totally get how he got so whipped.

15. NICK

While they’re in the bathroom together, I try to distract myself by coming up with a list of things that could be worse than having your vehement ex drag your current she’s-so-frickin’-cool girl away for some cubicle camaraderie (or conflict). I come up with the following:

• Having your pubic hair trimmed with garden shears.

• Having your pubic hair trimmed with garden shears by a frat guy who’s had twelve shots of Jägermeister.

• Having your pubic hair trimmed with garden shears by a frat guy who’s had twelve shots of Jägermeister during an 8.6 earthquake.

• Having your pubic hair trimmed with garden shears by a frat guy who’s had twelve shots of Jägermeister during an 8.6 earthquake with lite jazz playing.

I have to stop there. It’s just too horrifying.

It’s amazing how little I trust Tris, considering that I like to pay lip service to the fact that trust is an essential ingredient to love.

Best case scenario:

She’s saying, “Really, he was just too good for me, and I always felt like he could do better…like with a girl like you. And, man, is he hot in bed.”

Worst case scenario:

She’s saying, “There was this one time, we were flipping through the channels, and he stopped on Pocahontas, and the next thing I knew, he had a total hard-on.” (She will not mention where her hands were at the time.) “And, man, he is one lousy f**k, in more ways than one.”

Deep breaths. I am taking deep breaths.

Composure. Which, for me, means composing.

Why the f**k does my fate get decided

in the ladies’ room?

Sitting tongue-tied as I get derided

in the ladies’ room.

Employees must wash their hands of me

in the ladies’ room

Lock the door and throw away the plea

in the ladies’ room.

Maybe this is my way of creating the illusion of control over something I have no control over. Like, if it’s just a story I’m telling or a song I’m singing, then I’ll be okay because I’m the guy who’s providing the words. Which is not the way life works at all. Or at least not when it’s unfair.

I guess the cool thing is that I really wasn’t happy to see Tris. For the first time in what seems like ever. She walked in the door and my heart sank to hell.

It was strange enough to think that Norah knew who I was before I knew who she was. That she’d been in Tris’s orbit without me noticing. But I guess you don’t see the planets when you’re staring at the sun. You just get blinded.

The fact that she knew me makes this more real. I made my first impression without knowing I was making an impression at all. She knows at least a little of who I am, and she’s here anyway. Hopefully for longer than the next two minutes.

The waitress probably thinks I’m the worst kind of perv, because I can’t stop staring at the bathroom door.

Finally it opens, and Tris comes out alone. And my first thought, honest to Godspeed You Black Emperor!, is What the f**k have you done to Norah? Where is she?

But Tris isn’t staying long enough to be asked any questions. She just pushes past the table, yelling to me, “I told you that you’d find her someplace! Good job! And good luck with that one. You’re gonna need it. I almost feel sorry for you.”

And all I can think to say is:

“thanks.”

But I don’t say anything more. I let her leave. I mean, I don’t want her to stay. And yes, that makes this the first time I’m off of her without still getting off on the thought of her. I believe some cultures call this progress.

Norah’s looking really flustered as she comes back to the table, her face flushed, her pulse clearly up a notch or two. It must’ve been one hell of a confrontation.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

She nods absently. Then she looks at me again and it’s like our conversation kicks back in. She’s with me again.

“Yeah,” she says. “She just needed some money.”

“And you gave her what she wanted?”

“I guess we have a lot in common, don’t we?”

“She’s a f**king force of nature,” I say.

“She certainly is.”

“But to hell with her.”

Norah seems a little startled.

“What?” she says.

“I don’t know what she said to you, and I probably don’t want to know. Just like I don’t want to know why you ordered all this meat, or where you got your flannel—not that there’s anything wrong with it. That’s not what I want to know.”

She defiantly spears a piece of kielbasa and, before putting it in her mouth, asks, “So what do you want to know?”

What the hell are we doing here?

Is this incredibly foolish?

Am I even ready to have this conversation?

“What I want to know,” I say, “is which song you liked the most on the mixes I made Tris.”

She chews for a second. Swallows. Drinks some water.

“That’s what you want to know?”

“It seems like a place to start.”

“Honestly?”

“Yeah.”

She doesn’t even have to think. She just says, “The noticing song. I don’t know its name.”

Whoa. I mean, I thought she would name something from Patti Smith or Fugazi or Jeff Buckley or Where’s Fluffy. Or even one of the Bee Gees songs I put on, to be funny. I didn’t think she’d choose something I wrote and sang. It wasn’t even supposed to be on that mix. But one night I was just so wired from being with Tris that I had to stay up until I turned the evening into a song. I recorded it onto my computer, than stuck it on as a hidden track for the mix I gave her the next day.

Tris never mentioned it to me.

Not once.

“‘March Eighteenth,’” I say.

“What?”

“That’s the name of the song. I mean, it doesn’t really have a name. I can’t believe you remember it.”

“I loved it.”

“Really?” I have to ask.

“Really,” she says. And from the tone of her voice, I can tell it’s a real “really.” Then, to my amazement, she leans in and starts to sing the refrain. Not in a full voice, so everyone in the restaurant can hear. But like a stereo turned low, or a car radio on a lonely night. She sings me back to me:

The way you’re singing in your sleep

The way you look before you leap

The strange illusions that you keep

You don’t know

But I’m noticing

The way your touch turns into arcs

The way you slide into the dark

The beating of my open heart

You don’t know

But I’m noticing

And I’m moved, it’s so beautiful. Not what I wrote, but to have it given back like this. To have her remember the words and the tune. To hear it in her voice.

She is blushing furiously, so I don’t clap or do anything like that. Instead I shake my head and hope my amazement is translating.

“Wow,” I say.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Although, in all honesty, the first time I heard it, it caught me on a really bad day.”

“I can’t believe you—”

“I promise I’m not a stalker or anything. I promise I’ve forgotten all the other songs.”

“Really?”

“Can we change the subject?”

And I find myself saying, “It wasn’t really about her.” And finding it’s true.

“What do you mean?” Norah asks.

“It was about the feeling, you know? She caused it in me, but it wasn’t about her. It was about my reaction, what I wanted to feel and then convinced myself that I felt, because I wanted it that bad. That illusion. It was love because I created it as love.”

Norah nods. “With Tal, it was the way he always said goodnight. Isn’t that stupid? At first on the phone, and then when he’d drop me off, and even later when we were together and drifting off to sleep. He always wished me a goodnight and made it sound like it really was a wish. It’s probably just something his mother always did when he was a kid. A habit. But I thought, This is caring. This is real. It could erase so many other things. That simple goodnight.”

“I don’t think Tris ever wished me a goodnight.”

“Well, Tal sure as hell didn’t inspire me to write songs.”

“That’s too bad,” I say. “Tal rhymes with f**king everything.”

Norah thinks for a second. “You never put her name in any of the songs, did you?”

I go through the entire playlist, then shake my head.

“Why not?”

“I guess it didn’t occur to me.”