"Perhaps you don't know it," he said, "but you're getting yourselftalked about. You go about saying perfectly impossible things topeople. You won't marry. You have refused nearly every friend I have."Ruth shuddered.

But we didn’t go home. Dan took me back to my hotel, the Contemporary,and brought me up to my door. He keycarded the lock and stoodawkwardly as I hobbled into the empty room that was my new home, asI collapsed into the bed that was mine now.