He stuck out his hand to hail a taxi, something no one did anymore. It was moments like these when he revealed his age, his thirty-seven years on earth. I liked dating older men because they were well acquainted with loss. They’d seen the rise and fall of rock and roll, good drugs, cheap rent. Their favorite bars had closed, their friends had died, the city had papered over their youth. Having weathered more shit, they were patient with me. They liked to solve my little dramas because it made them feel powerful. They couldn’t bring their friends back from the dead, but they could fix my radiator, hang my curtains, hold me until I fell asleep. Do you believe in life after love … Sure, they were less ravishing now, their bodies ragged and libidos blunted; their lady-killing ways had paled and now they valued things like Costco cards and narrative tension. I didn’t mind. San Francisco would forget them, but I would remember. Miraculously, a taxi appeared. Dino held the door for me and smiled like a millionaire. I thought you’d never ask.

The words came so easily. I love you too. But I didn’t pull my hand away. It hurt me to see him like this, crinkled and grim. This was not a man who windsurfed at dawn; this was a man who could barely dog-paddle. Had he always been this pathetic? Maybe that was why he chased such young girls—they were easier to fool. He could siphon their optimism, their dopey hope. The name of the website we met on was Seeking.com, and I could still feel him seeking, like a cat in the dark. He wanted it all; he wanted out. He wore his disappointments like a rank corsage. He wanted to be sleek and bright, baptized by his nightly high. I glanced down at the coffee table, feeling my extremities tingle. I knew how to help him, to take the edge off. Did you take your pills, Daddy?

I hadn’t told Ophelia that my birthday was today. I was turning twenty-eight. Was that old or young? I didn’t know. When I was twenty-three, I wore heart-shaped stickers on my face. When I was twenty-five, I fell in love. I only drank tequila and pineapple juice, as if that said something important about me. At twenty-seven, I grieved and made bank. I felt tired when I pictured it, twenty-eight years contained in my body, an overstuffed carry-on. At the same time, it seemed like a sexy number, rounded and lush. Young for a writer, old for a gymnast, the perfect age for a bartender or anonymous fuck. I would throw away my flavored condoms and start reading about Bitcoin. I would buy satin sheets and retinol creams and carbonated water. I’d be sleek but fun, poised but game. I would dance with my eyes closed alone in a bar. All my shirts would be see-through, chopsticks in my hair. I couldn’t ever be embarrassed. From now on, I’d sleep naked with the windows ajar; that felt very twenty-eight. I took comfort in remembering what Simon had said, his eyes wet with meaning: You’re still so young!

As I walked, I thought about my answer to Nobody’s question. What would I miss most about being alive? It felt like bad luck to say what aloud. Instead I kept my answer close to my heart, like a locket containing my lover’s hair. It felt good to hold it there. It was both a secret and not, both hush-hush and public. I tried to imagine what my loved ones would say. Ophelia would miss sudoku, Dino would miss lingerie, Mazzy would miss Aperol. Or maybe Ophelia would miss yoga, Dino would miss ice cream, Mazzy would miss trashy paperback novels. The things we loved most were both elemental and petty. You squeezed them while you slept, these scraps. They made your body look beautiful, like the perfect accessory. Dog’s kisses, blue jeans. No one was dumb enough to say justice or family. No, we lived for Halloween and yard sales and driving at dusk with the windows rolled down. We lived for honeymoons and midnight snacks, blow jobs in chain hotels. We lived for paper valentines. It was garbage, but beloved. The devil’s in the details, my mom used to say as she stared at the TV. So too, it seemed, was heaven, or something just as good.