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toes to watch over the officer’s shoulder as he began to jot his notes.
    “Tell me what happened tonight, sir.” The officer had his pen at the ready. The pen was short. Ted didn’t think it looked that comfortable to write with.
    He thought for a moment, and nodded slowly.
    This was going to take some explaining.
    “It was a fortune cookie.”
    The officer licked his lips, and his pen remained resolutely motionless. The cop’s eyes remained fixed on Ted’s.
    “A fortune cookie?” asked the officer.
    “Yep, a fortune cookie. An exploding fortune cookie.”
    “So a fortune cookie exploded, blowing out half the windows down the street and landing you in the back of an ambulance?”
    “In a word, yes.”
    The officer licked his lips again and turned to Alison, who just shrugged.
    “Look,” said Ted. “We were out for my birthday…”

    Alison organized it, of course, although Ted thought he might have given a hint here and there. He didn’t think it was quite right to organize your own birthday dinner. Not that it was a milestone age, but he was turning an odd number – not just odd, but prime . Ted wasn’t good at math, but he had a thing for numbers. Alison knew this, although she thought his little numerical obsession was pretty dumb. But she organized dinner and drinks and friends, and kept the prime nature of Ted’s age to herself. Ted was just dying to tell everyone. Because, he rationalized, they were all friends and colleagues, right? Some from the blog, some not. And they wouldn’t mind if he waxed lyrical about the beauty of the number thirty-seven, would they?
    OK, maybe they would. Well, some of them. Not Benny. Ted wondered, through the haze of a little too much wine, whether he was stereotyping by assuming the young Asian woman would be good at math. He immediately felt stupid and decided not to bring it up.
    There were other guests from the Bay Blog: Alison, of course, the two Kevins, Daisy and Zane. Ted didn’t really care much for Zane’s company, but it was one of those situations where if you invited so-and-so and so-and-so, you really had to invite Zane as well.
    Then there was Andy and Lisa. Andy was an iPhone developer and he had an office that was far too plush and had way too much of a nice view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Lisa was his wife, and Ted didn’t think she worked, although he’d never quite figured it out.
    Rounding it off had been Victor, Kate, Klaire-with-a-K, and Barry and Amos. Ted was always vaguely jealous of Amos, having a name like that. It sure beat Ted.
    Ted was just thinking about someone else he knew with the frankly outstanding name of St. John when the table went quiet. He blinked and smiled sweetly at Alison, finally noticing that particular look she was giving him, the look that indicated sharp and stabby death was imminent if he didn’t start paying attention.
    Zane licked his lips and for a moment Ted thought he was being too harsh on him. So he was a bore. Ted had known worse.
    “Sorry,” said Ted, “what was that, Zane?”
    Zane’s smile grew two inches, and he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose a little. They were nice glasses. Thick black frames, gold arms, the design perfect for his face. He had taste. Maybe, thought Ted, he needed to be friends with Zane, proper friends. They could go fishing, or catch a game of whatever-it-was that they both liked, and then shoot the shit in a bar and eat peanuts. Zane had cool glasses. If Ted needed glasses – and he didn’t, but if he did – then he thought he might go for a pair like Zane’s.
    “I was saying,” said Ted’s new best friend, “don’t you think the new paper recycling policy at the office is just ridiculous?”
    He snickered. It was unpleasant, a sort of snort through the nostrils and hiss through the teeth, in rapid alternation. Ted watched Zane’s hipster glasses slide down his nose as Zane looked around the table, catching the eye of each diner to ensure that he had