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went online. Jennifer Estes smiled seductively, like she didn’t know we were separated by glass, and she was made purely of pixels.
    “Dear Jennifer,” I wrote, “I saw you at temple, glowing in neon like a false god. Coffee?”
    Erased it just as quickly, navigated to a site where Latina women said naughty things with accents.

twelve
    Imagined Dialogue:
    Jennifer: When I saw you, you looked pure as a newborn with your dangling, post-fashion curls and those big brown eyes. The rain fell like waterfalls, and you bathed. I knew I had to hold your nakedness against my own.
    Eli: Oh, my darling. I saw you too, rain-slickened and shining, sharing your soul with me. Let us undress and intertwine.
    Jennifer: I have always wanted to date a man who knows his way around the kitchen. I especially love tender, braised meat in heavy, red-wine-based sauce, falling off the bone. I like lemon meringue pie for dessert.
    Eli: Funny, I have just spent the day braising Asian-style beef short ribs, and there’s a lemon meringue cooling in my freezer. Here, have a taste.
    Jennifer: This is the best food I have ever tasted. I have an uncle who works for the Food Network, and he will give you your own show.
    Eli: Will you marry me?
    Jennifer: Yes, I will even convert to Judaism so your parents approve of me.
    Eli: My brother will be so jealous!
    Jennifer: But you are so cool and attractive, and he isn’t. It is obvious that your parents love you more than they love him.
    Eli: I knew it all along!
    Jennifer: I love giving blow jobs!

thirteen
    Dan was my dealer, lived around the corner. Convenient because of my driving handicap. Inconvenient because he sold overpriced, skimpy bags.
    Dan’s dad owned a liquid hand soap manufacturing wholesaler; he’d grown up dirt poor in Roxbury, wartime baby, made his first million by twenty-five, never looked back. Dan’s mom was Dan’s dad’s second wife. She lived in a condo on the north side. Wife Three lived in the house with Dad, though neither seemed particularly interested in Dan or the import/export warehouse he operated out of their basement.
    Dan’s dad was a sleaze, but he must have been smart or smart enough. Pulled up by his bootstraps, this was his reward: succession of wives, each younger, more silicone-cyborg than the last. He’d grown hefty through the years, gut expanding with bank account. Now, on his throne, Soprano-esque—larger than life, king of the castle, comfortably gluttonous. But maybe, like Tony, he too had secrets and guilt, saw a shrink on the sly, complained of fuckup son, unreliable tumescence.
    He opened the door wearing golf pants, cleats. There were both putting green and practice net in the house.Wanted to ask why he felt the need for proper attire; surely Wife Three didn’t enforce a dress code. But I liked the fact that he allowed himself the fantasy. Not embarrassed to play make-believe. Or he understood it was all make-believe: house, silicone wives, Phil Mickelson impersonation.
    A red carpet flowed down the stairs. The chandelier—all sparkles and bling—was blinding. Out front were ten-foot bronze lion statues that matched the trim on the windows.
    “Dan’s downstairs.”
    “Okay.”
    Walked through the foyer into the kitchen, where the maid scrubbed an oven pan and Wife Three sat at the table in black silk robe, reading catalogs.
    “Hi,” she said.
    Didn’t know each other’s names, but we passed by often. Felt a faint air of conspiracy between us; neither of us knew what the fuck we were doing there. I was almost her age, but she looked so much older, the way she dressed, the perm in her hair that reminded me of Mom’s. Wondered if she missed being young, fucking guys her own age—she must have had her pick—staying up late drinking cans of Bud Light, waiting for the light in the room to fall soft.
    “Hi,” I said, walked down to the basement.
    Dan’s basement bedroom was different from mine. Five times as big, filled with toys: 60-inch