Unfortunately, this crowd included Adam Morrow, the man whose blond cherubic children I would one day bear …if I ever worked up the nerve to talk to him.

I’ve had a crush on Adam since elementary school, when he sat beside me in homeroom. (Thank you, alphabetical order.) When we were kids, he looked like Joey McIntyre from New Kids on the Block, which is like preteen-girl kryptonite. And Adam was one of the few people who never called me Planed Jane, so double points for him. We moved in different circles in high school. OK, we were barely in the same building. He was the dimpled football hero with a mysterious dash of debate -team participation. I spent lunch breaks shelving library books for extra Key Club points. I didn ’t see him while we were away at college, but I like to think it means something that we both came home to Half-Moon Hollow. I like to think that he values his roots and wants to give back to his hometown. And that it makes me less of a loser for living less than five miles from my parents’ house.

Adam’s a veterinarian now. He makes his living curing puppies. I’m a woman of uncomplicated tastes.

Adam smiled at me from across the bar, but he didn’t come over. It was just as well, since (a) he probably didn’t remember my name, and (b) I might have melted off my bar stool into a puddle of hammered, unemployed hussy. Plus, I have had the same reaction around Adam since our very first elementary-school encounter. Total lockjaw. I cannot speak normal sentences. I can only smile, drool, and burble like an idiot…which was pretty much what I was doing at the time.

Had I not suffered enough already?

I considered cutting my losses and scuttling home, but I did not need to add “blackout drunk driver” to my already tattered reputation. Nestled in a crook of the Kentucky-Ohio River border, Half-Moon Hollow is not one of those stereotypical Southern towns where everybody knows everybody, we have one stoplight, and our sole cop carries his bullet around in his pocket. We had the second stoplight installed last year. And don’t call it a “holler,” or I will personally track you down and hurt you.

Of the ten thousand or so people who live in this town, I am on a first-name basis with or related to about half. And if I don’t know you, I know your cousins. Or my parents know you, your parents, or your parents’ cousins. So I was caught off guard when a complete stranger materialized on the bar stool next to me.

“Hi,” I said. Actually, I think I yelled in a too-loud drunk voice. “That was…unexpected.”

“It usually is,” said Mr. Tall, Dark, and Yummy. He asked the bartender for the Tequila Sunrise Special and was served in record time. As I stared at the maroon cloud swirling in the bottom of his glass, he asked if I would like another drink.

“I’m already drunk,” I said, in what I’m sure I thought was a whisper. “I probably need to switch to coffee if I’m going to get home tonight.”

His hesitant smile showed perfectly even, almost unnaturally white teeth. He probably suffers an addiction to tooth whitener, I mused. He seemed to take pretty good care of his skin as well. Hair: longish, winding in dark, curling locks from a slight widow’s peak to his strong, square chin. Eyes: deep gray, almost silver, with a dark charcoal ring around the irises. Clothes: dark, well cut, and out of place in the Shenanigans crowd. Preliminary judgment: definitely a metrosexual, possibly gay, with a spontaneous yen for mozzarella sticks.

“What’s your name?” Mr. Yummy asked, signaling the bartender to get me a cup of coffee.

“Jane Jameson,” I said, extending my hand. He shook it with hands that were smooth and cool. I thought that he must moisturize like crazy. And then I started to babble. “It’s mind-blowingly boring, I know. Why don’t I just go completely bland and change my last name to Smith or Blank? Or why not do the mature thing and go by my middle name? Well, you’d have to be crazy to go by my middle name.”

“And what is that?” he asked.

“Enid,” I said, grimacing. “After a distant relative. My dad thought it was really original because no one else had a daughter named Enid. I guess it hadn’t occurred to him why nobody else had a daughter named Enid. I think Mama was still hopped up on the epidural, because she agreed to it.”

“Purity,” he said. I think I squinted at him, because he repeated himself. “‘Enid’ is Welsh in origin. It means ‘purity’ or

‘soul.’”

“It also meant there were a lot of jokes at my expense when our full names were announced at school, ” I muttered sulkily.

The coffee was a bitter black jolt to the system after frothy frozen cocktails. I shuddered. “Graduations were hell.”

He paused for a moment and then laughed, a good explosion of honest, barking laughter. It sounded rusty, as if he hadn ’t done that in a while.

“Jane Enid Jameson, my name is Gabriel Nightengale,” he said. “I would very much like to keep you company until you are able to drive home.”

I wish I could remember that first conversation with Gabriel, but Mighty Lord Kahlua prevents it. From what I can piece together, I gave him the gory details of my firing. I think I impressed him by explaining that the term firing came from ancient Britannic clans.

When village elders wanted to get rid of someone, instead of accusing him of witchcraft or shunning him, they would burn down the undesirable’s house and force him to move on. I don’t know how this stuff sticks in my head, it just does.

We eventually wandered into a discussion of English literature. Gabriel expressed affection for Robert Burns, whom I deemed “too lazy to spell correctly.” I would feel bad, but he called my beloved Ms. Austen a “repressed, uptight spinster.” I was provoked. We called a truce and decided to discuss a much more neutral subject, religion.

It took several hours, but I sobered up considerably. Still, I was reluctant to leave. Here was a person who didn’t know me before my life was turned upside down. He couldn’t compare the before and after Jane. He didn’t know me well enough to feel sorry for me. He only knew this slightly tipsy girl who seemed to amuse him.

And there was something compelling about my new friend. My nerve endings telegraphed “Run, stupid, run!” messages to my brain, but I ignored them. Even if I ended up chained in his secret basement dungeon …well, it’s not as if I had to go to work the next day.

When the bartender yelled “Last call,” Gabriel walked me to my car. There was an uncomfortable second when I thought (hoped) he might kiss me. He was staring at my mouth with a sort of hunger that made me feel light and giddy. After a few agonizing seconds, he sighed, opened my car door, and wished me good night.

I drove slowly along Route 161, pondering my drinking buddy’s apparent indifference. Had I ever been the type of girl who got picked up in bars? Well, no. I am the designated girl buddy. If I had a nickel for every time I heard the words “I don’t want to ruin our friendship,” I wouldn’t be driving a car with an ominously flashing “check engine” light.

As I passed High Station Road, the taste of coffee and mudslides bubbled at the back of my throat with threatening velocity.

I vurped up essence of Kahlua and mumbled, “Great, I’ll finish the night off by vomiting.”

Then Big Bertha’s engine rattled and died.

“Aw, crap,” I moaned, thunking my head against the wheel. I did not relish the idea of walking alone at night on the proverbial dark country road. But Half-Moon Hollow had two towing garages, both of which closed after eight P.M. I didn’t have much of a choice. Plus, there was also the tiniest possibility that I still had alcohol in my system, so calling the police or AAA was not a great idea.

So, out of my car I climbed, grumbling about useless machines and blowtorch revenge. I was wearing open -toed sandals, very sensible shoes when one is schlepping toward a hatchet-wielding, woods-dwelling maniac. I spent every other step kicking bits of gravel out of my shoes, knowing that it was forming impenetrable gray cement between my toes. I passed roadside banks of wild day lilies, their orange lips clenched shut against the night, their heavy heads leaving tracks of dew on my jeans. To top off my evening, I was going to have to check myself for ticks when I got home.

The one thing I had going for me was good night vision. I thought so right up until I fell face-first into a ditch.

“Seriously?” I yelled at the sky. “Come on!”

Swiping at the mud on my face and the stones embedded in my knees, I made more creative use of those seven words you don’t say in polite company. Lights fanned over me. I spun toward the noise of a moving vehicle, wondering whether it was wise to wave and ask for help. Without warning, I felt a hot punch to my side. My lungs were on fire. I couldn’t catch my breath. I pressed a palm against my ribs and felt warm gushes of blood spilling out onto the grass.

“Aw, crap,” was all I could manage before falling back into the ditch.

You’re probably wondering what happened to me. I certainly did. Even in the darkness that cradled me like warm, wet cotton, I thought, Was that it? Was that my whole life? I’m born. I have an unfortunate permed-bangs era. I’m fired. I die?

I remember being so sorry that I wasn’t able to say good-bye to my family or at least give Adam Morrow a kiss that would have left him inconsolable at my funeral. I was also very sorry about my choice of last words.

Then the movie started. The whole tunnel-of-light thing is a hallucination, but near -death experience survivors aren’t lying when they say your life flashes before your eyes. It ’s kind of a fast-forwarded highlight reel complete with hokey music. My soundtrack was a Muzak version of “Butterfly Kisses,” which is something that I will take to my grave.

The This Is Your Life flashbacks allow you to watch yourself being born and dying and all the moments in between. Sitting in church in torturously starched tights, first days of school, sleepovers, camping trips, Christmases, birthdays, final exams, each precious bubble of time slipping from you even as you try to grasp and hold on. Some moments you ’d rather forget, such as throwing up on the school bus or the time you skipped your grandpa’s funeral to go to the water park with your friends. (I swear, I’ll explain that one later.)