“In a low voice, I told her many things in English, only using French when for some reason I couldn’t find the word I wanted, rambling on about the France of my time, and the crude little colony of New Orleans where I had existed after, and how wondrous this age was, and how I’d become a rock star for a brief time, because I thought that as a symbol of evil I’d do some good.”

“How would I feel if I woke up and she told me that we had done it while I slept? I’d be fine with it. A little sad that I missed things, but I wouldn’t be mad. I’d just ask her if I had a good time. Women are different, though.”

“If my doctor told me I only had five minutes to live, I’d probably change all the clocks in my house, because they’re all five minutes fast and I want to know exactly how much time I have left so I can use it wisely.”

“The fan was spinning and as the shadows passed over the white ceiling I let my eyes unfocus until all of it looked like a universe being born or a planet unraveling, some creation or catastrophe depending on which way gravity was going and where you were standing. So instead of Elizabeth Taylor I thought about stars and how little I knew about them, and how if I was an explorer and I had to sail a boat across the ocean without rador or an electronic compass I’d be screwed because the only constellations I knew were the Big Dipper and Little Dipper and I always got them confused. And even though I knew I’d never have to sail that boat I still wished I knew more about stars and other things. And I wished I could remember lying in the back yard as a kid with my hands locked behind my head, looking up at the night sky and dreaming. But I couldn’t, because it wasn’t something I ever did. It would have been a nice memory though”

“I knew that to find and to feel Yoav again would be terribly painful, because of what had become of him, and because of what I knew he could ignite in me, a vitality that was excruciating because like a flare it lit up the emptiness inside me and exposed what I always secretly knew about myself: how much time I’d spent being only partly alive, and how easily I’d accepted a lesser life.”

“What are you wearing?”I looked down at my soft flannel pajamas. I’d washed them so many times the plaid pattern had faded mostly to grays and whites. “What do you want me to be wearing?”Dan’s voice shifted a little. I imagined a smile. “Nothing.”Such a small thing, that little bit of flirting, but all at once I felt as if air had rushed into my lungs, and I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath. “Nothing but a smile.”