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“What?”

“His name is Daniel. He’s thirty-one. He came out to my mother at Thanksgiving in 2016, over the turkey, with cranberry sauce on his chin.” She rested her chin on her hand. “Before that, he spent about three years looking exactly the way you look right now.”

“How do I look?”

“Like a man who’s been hit by a truck and can’t decide whether to be angry or grateful.”

I laughed. It broke in the middle. I put my hand over my eyes.

“It’s not a thing, “ I said. “It’s a— there’s someone. But it’s complicated. And also insane. And also I don’t even know if I—”

“You don’t have to know.”

“I’m not gay.”

“Okay.”

“I’m just saying I’m not.”

“Okay.”

“I’ve had like, thirty girlfriends.”

“That’s a lot for a man who says he isn’t dating.” She patted my wrist. “Honey. Nobody’s asking you to decide anything at eight o’clock on a Friday. You can be whatever you are. Or nothing yet. It’s allowed.”

I took my hand away from my face. She was still smiling. There was no pity in it, no offense. She looked like a friend.

“You’re being really nice about this,” I said.

“I’m a linguist, “ said Vanessa. “I like watching people find the right word.”

Then she sneezed. It was the duck. From the bar, Dara looked up, alarmed, and started toward us with a face like a bodyguard.

“False alarm!” Vanessa yelled. “Sorry! I just got emotional!”

I put my forehead on the table and laughed until my ribs hurt.

We ordered fries. We ordered a second basket of fries. Dara joined us and told a long, unhinged story about a goat, and Vanessa told me about a professor who spoke seven languages and could not order a sandwich in any of them, and around ten o’clock she hugged me by the door with both arms and said into my collar, “Text me. When you know. Or when you don’t. I’ll want to hear either way.”

“I will.”

“And Lex?”

“Yeah?”

“Whoever it is.” She pulled back and looked me in the eyes. “He’s lucky.”

I opened my mouth to argue. I closed it.

“He’s terrifying, “ I said instead.

“Perfect,” said Vanessa, and kissed my cheek, and let go.

I walked back to the guest house. I don’t know why I didn’t take a cab. The night was cold and clear, and the streets were dark and mostly empty, and I felt strange and light, like something had been taken off my back and I hadn’t noticed how heavy it was.

I was three blocks from the Halden Guest House, under a streetlamp on a quiet corner, when I saw the man.

He was across the street. Standing at the mouth of a narrow alley next to a bakery with its lights turned off. He was in a long, gray coat with the collar turned up, a dark hat pulled low. He didn’t look like a mugger, or a drunk, or a fan.