When Lina left the ground-floor office, it was snowing. Taxis moved slowly as in a dream. She skied along the park uptown.

Gradually, Lina had come back to the way she’d been before Sacha; life was life, roving, wavelike, with the same quantities of pleasure, discomfort, sorrow, and excitement. Peace at the end of longing. The time with him, she’d thought she was happy. But along with that jolt of victory—he chose me—she’d felt a constant anxiety: Would she be able to

“I wish I’d had even one. I guess you don’t get revelations from shopping.” She was keeping a journal to discern patterns. “It’s like anorexia. You can’t completely stop eating or using money. And what is it they say? One hundred percent is easier than ninety-five.” Donnie thought

He thought of his mom. You lived every day with someone and then you left, and even if they were failing, you lost your virginity; your lives weren’t interdependent anymore, though you’d once been everything to each other.

What he liked best in college was meeting a friend for a walk. He wished he could major in walks.

And it wasn’t only college. It was profession. Status. Books they read touted the nobility of their kind of lives, because the writers of those books had themselves punched in their ten thousand hours and had to believe that that lost time was meaningful, even sacred. All the while other people were making meals and sitting down to eat together. Wh

At moments, it felt like they were gaining traction; other times, conversation felt like work. Evan

Their conversations didn’t catch, the way Lina needed hers to lock and turn.

They could spend an afternoon together not saying much, but when he left he felt nourished as if he’d eaten a light but healthy meal.