But there was no path; he was deep in an impenetrable throng of Antipodeans, apparently regaling. He made a swinging motion like he was telling a baseball story. I decided I could embark on a fact-finding mission until the final inning and hit my head on the overhang above the steps on my way out the door. I emerged embarrassed—Why is hitting your head on unaccommodating structures always embarrassing? Surely an architect somewhere is the one who should be embarrassed—and annoyed. Hi, I said. Can’t you smoke inside here? Kasia said yes “but not quietly.” I laughed and then realized I’d gotten myself into a textbook-awkward situation by not coming out with a conversational game plan. She had smoking to focus on; I was just standing there. I could have asked her for a cigarette but since she rolled her own the request was more burdensome than whether could I merely deplete her supply; there was no hope of me rolling one myself. I regretted leaving the Brazilians behind. I dug through my purse for something to do. Lip gloss, technically “butter,” which one has to apply with one’s fingers and so must subsequently wipe off on available (ideally dark-colored) fabric. I took out my phone and tapped around, pretending it worked, reading old promotional emails as if they were important updates from everyone I knew. Kasia was looking diagonally away from me and exhaling as if coming to terms with a huge problem in her life. Suddenly, or maybe it just seemed sudden because I was in a fabricated trance about my cell phone, she was looking at me and asking where I was from.