Twice in our first hour of drinking I make her laugh. It is a big, deep and throaty laugh that throws her head back with its sheer exuberence and ferocity, leaving her neck turned slightly away, her face pink, peering at me out of the corner of her eyes part questioning and part inviting as she recovers.

Her hair is pulled back and up in a pony tail. She is sucking her thumb. And her eyes are the blackest I have ever seen.

The voice on my office speaker phone is harsh, too raspy to be shrill, but the shrill is implied, just over the edge of hysteria, berating, demanding, the voices of the guys she's haranguing not quite at the edge of quaking as they agree that their performance is unacceptable that they will have to work harder, work smarter, work longer, give up their nights and their weekends and every shred of personal dignity that they might have left after who knows how many days and weeks of this every morning for an hour.

"You really do look excellent like that."

We're waiting in the bar to be seated when a waitress, extremely cute in a medium-height blond, slightly thick, Striesand-faced way starts apologizing to the bartender for some mistake.

This morning the kid couldn't figure out why she walked right past him on the bus pretending not to know him, doesn't get the concept of "enjoyed your company too much." Which I can't blame him for, it's an idiotic concept, not her fault, born of culture and upbringing and the overwhelming big lie that we have to choose between the ecstastic liberation of sexual-spiritual free love and the known future security of monogomous domesticity.

"Please. Maybe that would get me started. I do love sex."

The arm chair is in the corner in the front of the apartment, near the not quite covered window facing the street.

I was standing at the meat counter at the supermarket when I heard a "Hey neighbor" behind me and turned around, then looked down a foot to where she stood, her dark hair even frizzier than usual, dressed in jogging clothes, smiling up at me, her bright eyes and wide smile instantly making my heart melt.

The two men walking toward her are obviously father and son.