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I dial Information. I feel bad canceling on Mac, but when the operator asks, "What listing, please?" I feel even worse. I don't know where he's staying.

During dinner I try to convince myself that I could just not show up for the date. But I know I'm incapable of this.

"Robert," I say finally, closing my eyes. "I can't go away with you."

"Why?" he says.

I can't make my mouth form the words. I start to. I say, "I have..." and Robert says, "You have a date."

He shakes his head for a minute. Then he signals for the waitress. While he signs the credit-card slip, I blather on about how the guy is from Japan, and I would cancel but I don't know—he interrupts me with a look.

"Two stops," he says to the cabdriver.

Faith says, "Nice going."

—•—

In the morning, I call Robert, but his phone rings and rings. I take Jezebel to the dog run at Madison Square Park. It is the first true day of summer, but the clear sky and strong sun make New York seem gritty.

Even the sight of Jezebel prancing around doesn't cheer me up. I feel like the old whiny beagle none of the dogs will play with.

"I know how hard this is," Faith says. "But if Robert is so easily discouraged, he's not right for you anyway."

I say, "If Robert did this to me, I'd try to forget about him."

"You're putting yourself in his place," Faith says.

"But you're not Robert!" Bonnie says. "You're not a man!"

"I'm a dog," I say, "and you're trying to make me into a cat."

—•—

I wash my hair. Dry it. I put on a dress and sandals. Drop lipstick in my bag. I do it all as perfunctorily as if I were preparing for an appointment with my accountant.

Bonnie says, "Look at your nails! You could repot a geranium with what's under there."

"What is it with you people and nails?" I say irritably.

I put on my bicycle helmet.

"You're not riding your bicycle," Bonnie says. "He'll think you're a weirdo."

"I am a weirdo, Bonnie."

"Well," she says, "you don't have to wear it on your sleeve or whatever."

I see Mac before he sees me. He's tall with broad shoulders and wavy blond hair, aristocratic in a blue blazer and white shirt. His strange features—beady eyes, thin lips, and pointy chin—somehow conspire to make him attractive, though I feel none of the electricity of yesteryear.

"Jane Rosenal," he says, and as he kisses my cheek, I realize that for all of our flirting we never kissed.

He looks down at my helmet. "Bicycle?"

"Yup," I say.

Isn't it dangerous?" he says.

I nod.

"Do you mind eating outside?" he asks.

We follow the ma d' upstairs to an exquisite roof garden with candles and flowers, flowers everywhere. It's breezy and the sky is full of billowy clouds, and for a moment I am not sorry to be here. Then I remember Robert and the cost of this dinner.

"Do you want a bottle of wine?" Mac asks.

"I think I'll have a drink-drink," I say, and when the waiter comes I order a martini. Mac says he'll have the same.

"So," he says and begins to ask the questions you'd expect. He speaks and then I do, his turn then mine; it's less like a conversation than a transatlantic call.

He says that he lives in a residence hotel for businessmen, which is convenient and luxurious; and it isn't until he adds, "Home, sweet residence hotel, I guess," that I realize he's funny, dry, and deadpan, his own straight man.

"By the way," he says, "you can call me Mac if you want to, but I go by William now."

I say, "I go by Princess Jane. If we get to know each other better, I may let you call me just Princess."

He laughs. "That's what I remember about you," he says. "You were so funny."

"See?" I say to Bonnie and Faith.

"And it only took him fifteen years to call," Faith says.

—•—

After two martinis and a bottle of wine with dinner, I realize I better order coffee if I want to walk down the steps.

During dessert, Mac asks if he can call me Princess, and I say, "Yes, William."

He tells me that he plans to come back from Asia before long; he wants to teach in Morristown, New Jersey, the horsy suburb where he grew up.

"What would you teach?" I ask.

"Anything but gym," he says. "What