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really care. Not the way I do.”
    â€œAw, now, sure he does,” Tack said, because he didn’t know any better.
    â€œHe doesn’t ” Lynn blubbered. “Don’t you see ! If he cared, our anniversary would be just as important to him as it is to me . But it’s not, and he doesn’t and now I have to somehow find the strength to pick up the pieces and go on ... alone.”
    Tack shot a pleading look my way. It was so forlorn that I nearly stepped in to help him, but then I realized I was kind of enjoying watching him squirm, so I let it go.
    â€œYou know what the worst part is?” Lynn asked. Apparently, she’d forgotten that she’d just covered that.
    â€œUh, what?” Tack said in a doomed voice.
    Lynn turned her red, swollen eyes toward Tack like he was her only hope. “The worst part was that Conor didn’t even know what I was feeling!”
    More sobs. More nose-honking into Kleenex. More wild-eyed looks from Tack.
    â€œDidn’t you tell him?” Tack asked. Another rookie mistake.
    Lynn looked incredulous. “Oh, that is so typical,” she said bitterly. “I shouldn’t have to tell my own boyfriend these things. I shouldn’t have to explain the difference between when I’m mad and when I’m sad. If our relationship was solid, he would know without being told.”
    â€œOh,” Tack said. I think he was catching on that the less he said, the better.
    â€œI don’t know why I get so upset over these things,” she said, her shoulders convulsing. “I think it’s because I’m just too sensitive sometimes.”
    â€œNuthin’ wrong with that,” Tack assured her.
    â€œAm I so terrible to want to have the kind of relationship where two people are so in sync with each other that they know each other’s thoughts and feelings without being told? Is that so wrong of me?”
    â€œCourse not,” Tack told her. His face told me he meant it. He didn’t think she was wrong — he thought she was nuts.
    â€œBut I’m to blame too,” Lynn said sorrowfully. “Maybe not as much as Conor — but in a way, what happened is my fault too.”
    Tack stayed silent. I mentally gave him a gold star.
    â€œBecause I,” — sniff, sniff — “Well, I shouldn’t say the things I say. I say terrible things to Conor when I’m hurting, and I know that, even though he hurt me first, he didn’t mean to. I have to learn to let it go.”
    â€œWell, you know, nobody can do right every minute,” Tack consoled. The error alarm in my head went off like mad. I mentally snatched the gold star back.
    â€œSo, you think I was wrong —” Lynn lifted her chin and looked right at Tack, looked at him like she was taking his measure, the way guys do to each other when they’re about to mess it up.
    â€œNo, no. Not like that, you know.”
    â€œCome on, be honest. You think I messed up! You think it was wrong of me to get upset at Conor after he was just, like, totally insensitive to my feelings.”
    Tack did what he should have done right from the beginning. He threw up his hands, shut his mouth, and backed off.
    It didn’t take Lynn thirty seconds to see that she’d lost her opponent. As I knew she would, she whirled on me.
    â€œWhat am I going to do?” she moaned, deflating from the bitter disappointment that the argument, that had seemed so promising, hadn’t materialized after all.
    â€œIt’ll be okay,” I said in a monotone. I was determined to shut her down as fast as I could. Maybe Tack would pick up a couple of pointers.
    But Lynn had already moved on. She looked at me with her eyes all sad and pleading and said, “Do you think that maybe you could, you know, talk to him?”
    It almost always came to this moment, and when it did, I’d refuse in such a way that Lynn knew there was no negotiating. I’d