“The scene is very Sopranos meets Rent.”

“Can we try to be wise with each other for a very long time?”

“What I’m sorry about is not being a tipsy idiot when you found me. I’m sorry about that, obviously, but more sorry that my stupidity caused us to lose a great opportunity. I don’t imagine you would have met me and fallen crazy in love with me, but I would like to thinkthat if you’d had a chance to meet me under different circumstances, something just as nice could have happened.We could have become friends.”

“Dash is getting very frisky in here with me, Mark." What I wanted to say was I wish Dash was getting frisky in here with me. Dash raised an eyebrow at me again."No he's not," Mark said."How do you know?""Because if he was, you wouldn't be calling me to rescue you right now, Googly Eyes.”

“You think fairy tales are only for girls? Here’s a hint—ask yourself who wrote them. I assure you, it wasn’t just the women. It’s the great male fantasy—all it takes is one dance to know that she’s the one. All it takes is the sound of her song from the tower, or a look at her sleeping face. And right away you know—this is the girl in your head, sleeping or dancing or singing in front of you. Yes, girls want their princes, but boys want their princesses just as much. And they don’t want a very long courtship. They want to know immediately.”

“I’m looking for Fat Hoochie Prom Queen,” I declared.He did not respond.“It’s a book,” I said. “Not a person.”Nope. Nothing.“At the very least, can you tell me the author?”He looked at his computer, as if it had some way to speak to me without any typing on his part.“Are you wearing headphones that I can’t see?” I asked.He scratched at the inside of his elbow.“Do you know me?” I persisted. “Did I grind you to a pulp in kindergarten, and are you now getting sadistic pleasure from this petty revenge?Stephen Little, is that you? Is it? I was much younger then, and foolish to have nearly drowned you in that water fountain. In my defense, yourprior destruction of my book report was a completely unwarranted act of aggression.”Finally, a response. The information desk clerk shook his shaggy head.“No?” I said.“I am not allowed to disclose the location of Fat Hoochie Prom Queen,” he explained. “Not to you. Not to anyone. And while I am not StephenLittle, you should be ashamed of what you did to him. Ashamed.”

“The reward is in the risk. I wanted so badly to believe, but the fear felt as great and overwhelming as the desire.I abruptly stood up from my chair so I could return to my room and feel terribly sorry for myself and eat away too much chocolate in private“Can we try to be wise with each other for a very long time??”-“You mean, can we share our fuckups and see if we can get any wisdom out of them?”“Yeah, that would be nice”They think that fate is playing with them. That we’re all just participants in this romantic reality show that God gets a kick our of watching. But the universe doesn’t decide what’s right or not right. You doDullness is the spice of live. Which is why we must always use other spicesI don’t know what I’m doing. Please don’t laugh at me. If I’m a disaster, please be kind and let me down gentlyWas it possible my heart was shaking as hard as my hands?I thought about the bigger picture of my life, and about the people I would encounter during my lifetime. How would I ever know when that moment was right, when expectation met anticipation and formed…connection?”