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By Root 656 0

really intimate long-term friendship. My brother, Paul, would call this feeling part of our fallen state, that we cannot love unreservedly, that we must consider the beloved less than we believe ourselves to be, in at least one way. I suppose this is, though hurtful, a good thing. We all have a tendency toward self-worship, and one of the prime functions of a good friend is to keep this in check. I know he thinks I am a dull old dog, and not nearly as smart as he is. Perhaps true; certainly I am not nearly as famous. I don’t write popular best-selling books, I am not worshipped by legions of students, I am not a premier member of the National Academy of Arts and Letters, nor do I have his Pulitzer Prize. He must also think I am something of a fool for love, or at least sex. He is certainly privy to the tale of my peccadilloes, save the three exceptions I have noted. He was terribly affected when Amalie and I broke up. She’s perfect for you, he said at the time, listing her virtues. He was correct. Too perfect for me by far, but it’s hard to get that notion across to another.

Several days later, according to my diary, Ms. Maldonado put through a call; I had alerted her to its possibility and stressed the importance thereof. The voice was young, pleasant, somewhat throaty. You know what this is about then, eh? The aboot and the terminal syllable marked her as a Canadian. Foreign—nearby, as the ads used to say. I found it immediately attractive, and I invited her to drop by the office, but she demurred. She’d rather meet me in a neutral place, for reasons she would explain when we met. Where, then? She was working, she said, in the New York Public Library, in the Brooke Russell Astor Reading Room of the Rare Books Division. I said I had some things to clear up, but that I could meet her there at four. She said she looked forward to meeting me.

I resumed my task of the day, which was suing some poor slob of an artist on behalf of a giant corporation. This is the daily bread of the IP lawyer. Someone had appropriated the logo of a national chain to comment on the madness of consumerism. The original logo is a little risqué (tits), and the artist had made it more so, and it had shown up on popular posters and T-shirts and the corporation was not amused. I can do cease-and-desist orders of this type in my sleep, or on this occasion, with my mind on my coming date with the mysterious heiress of Bulstrode, whose name I now knew was Miranda Kellogg.

Omar dropped me off at the Fifth Avenue entrance to the great beaux arts pile of the library at a quarter to four. The two stone lions, Patience and Fortitude, who according to New York lore are supposed to roar when a virgin ascends the steps, were mum. I took the elevator to the third floor and arranged admission to the locked Astor room, just off the main reading room. Memories here: I spent a significant portion of my middle-school years sitting at those long wooden tables. I would subway up from Brooklyn and stay the whole day, supposedly researching a school paper (this was before the Internet, of course, and before Mrs. Polansky struck) but mainly enjoying the anonymity, the company of strangers and scholars, and the utter un-Mishkinity of the place. My first really adult experience.

I spotted her right away, at a long table in one corner. Apart from a gentleman manning the official desk, she was alone in the richly paneled room. Her hair was blond, worked into two miniature braids pinned up over the ears. Amalie wore her hair that way when we were courting, and absurd as it is I have always been a sucker for that style. Her neck was bared and deliciously vulnerable; women’s necks are, in my view, the most underrated secondary sexual characteristic in our culture, and one that always gets me in the vitals. I stood there for minutes just watching her turn pages. Then, in the mysterious way that has never been successfully explained to me, she became conscious of my stare and turned abruptly. Our eyes met. I nodded. She smiled dazzlingly and rose and came toward me. She didn’t