Sun was slanting through the windows, making bright stripes on the ivory-colored carpet and the pink down comforter that felt light as a kiss on my body. I lifted my head. Youch. Big mistake. I gingerly set my head back down on the pillows and closed my eyes again. It felt like someone had welded an iron band around my scalp and was tightening it slowly. It felt like my face was shrinking. It felt like there was something taped to my forehead.

I lifted my hands, removed a piece of paper that had, indeed, been taped to my forehead, and began to read.

Dear Cannie, Sorry I had to leave you in such a state, but my plane left very early this morning (and April is livid with me... but that's okay. It was worth it!).

I feel very badly about what happened last night. I know that I pushed you into calling him, and that it was terrible news to receive. I can imagine how you're feeling now. I have been there myself (in terms of the tequila and the heartbreak both!).

Why don't you call me tomorrow, when you're back home and, I hope, feeling better? My number's below. I do hope you'll forgive me, and that we are still friends.

There will be a car waiting for you out front all day long, to take you home- my treat. (Actually, April's!) Please call soon.

Sincerely, Maxi Ryder And then there were a string of telephone numbers: Australia. Office. England. Pager. Cell phone. Fax. Alternate Fax. E-mail.

I made my way gingerly to the bathroom, where I was noisily and thoroughly sick. Maxi had left aspirin on the sink, along with what looked like several hundred dollars of unopened Kiehl's grooming products, and two large bottles of Evian water, still chilled. I swallowed three aspirin, sipped carefully at the water, and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Ugh. Not good. Pale, pasty, blotchy skin, greasy hair, black-circled eyes, and all the makeup I'd tried at the Beauty Bar had smeared everywhere. I was weighing the pain-to-benefit ratio of a long hot shower when there was a gentle knock at the door.

"Room service," said the waiter, and wheeled in a cart. Hot coffee, hot tea, four kinds of juice, and dry toast. "Feel better," he said sympathetically. "And Ms. Ryder made arrangements for late checkout."

"How late?" I asked. My voice sounded creaky.

"Late as you like," he said. "Take your time. Enjoy."

He opened the curtains, displaying a panoramic view of the city.

"Wow," I said. The sunlight felt like it was stabbing my eyes, but the power of that view was undeniable. I could see Central Park spread out below me, dotted with people and trees, with their leaves turning orange and gold. The the stretch of high-rises in the distance. Then the river. Then New Jersey. "He lives in New Jersey," I heard myself saying.

"It's the penthouse suite," he said, and left me there.

I poured myself a cup of tea, added sugar, attempted a few bites of toast. The bathtub, I observed sadly, was big enough for two- in fact, it was probably big enough for three, if the occupants were so inclined. The rich are different, I reasoned, and ran the water as hot as I could stand it, dumped in some frothing lotion guaranteed to possess so many restorative powers that I should rise from the tub reborn, or at least much better looking, and pulled my sundress off over my head.

My second mistake of the morning. There were mirrors all over the bathroom, mirrors offering views you couldn't usually find outside of a department store. And the terrain was not looking good. I closed my eyes to blot out the vision of stretch marks and cellulite. "I have strong tanned legs," I recited to myself. We'd practiced positive self-talk the week before in Fat Cla.s.s. "I have beautiful shoulders." Then I slipped into the tub.

So, I thought bitterly. So he had someone else. So what did I think would happen? He's Jewish, he's got an education, he's tall and he's straight and he's easy on the eyes, and somebody was bound to s.n.a.t.c.h him up.

I rolled over, sending a cascade of water to the bathroom floor.

But he loved me, I thought. And was always telling me so. He thought I was perfect... that we were perfect together. And ten minutes later he's got someone else in his bed? Doing the things he swore he only ever wanted me to do?

The voice returned, implacable. But you were the one who wanted a break. And, What did you expect?

"Philadelphia, right, miss?" The driver was Russian, and was actually wearing a chauffeur's cap. The car, as it turned out, was a limousine, with a backseat bigger than my bed, and probably bigger than my bedroom, too. I peeked inside. There was the requisite television set, a VCR, a fancy-looking stereo... and, of course, a bar. Different liquors glittering in cut-crystal decanters, and a row of empty gla.s.ses. My stomach rolled over lazily.

"Could you excuse me?" I asked, and hurried back into the lobby. Hotel lobby bathrooms are also great places to get sick.

The chauffeur looked amused when I made it back to the car. "You want to take the Turnpike?"

"Whatever's easiest," I said, slipping into the seat, while he held the door open and loaded my backpack, shoe boxes, and shopping bags from the Beauty Bar into the trunk. There was a telephone in the backseat, next to the stereo and the television set, and I grabbed it, suddenly, sweatily desperate to know whether Bruce had tried to get in touch with me last night. There was a single message on my machine. "Hey, Cannie, it's Bruce, returning your call. I'm going home for a few days, so maybe I'll try you later this week." No I'm sorry. No It was all a bad dream. The call had come at eleven in the morning, probably after he'd had time for a morning go-round and a Belgian waffle with Miss Squeaky Springs, who would, thanks to my training, never refer to him as the Human Bidet, and who probably did not weigh more than he did.

I closed my eyes. It hurt so much.

I set the phone back as we barreled down the New Jersey Turnpike at eighty miles an hour, right past the exit that would take me to his door. I tapped two of my fingers against the window as we sped past. h.e.l.lo and good-bye.

Sunday pa.s.sed in a blur of tears and vomit at Samantha's house, where Nifkin and I had decamped, the better not to hear the telephone not ringing. Samantha, I could tell, was doing her d.a.m.ndest not to say she'd told me so. She lasted longer than I would have- all the way until Sunday night, when she finally ran out of questions to ask about Maxi and turned to the topic of Bruce, and the disastrous telephone call.

"You wanted to take a break for a reason," she told me. We were sitting at the Pink Rose Pastry Shop. She was nibbling a macaroon. I was forking my way through a baseball-shaped and baseball-sized eclair, the best legal antidote for human misery I'd found, figuring that it didn't matter, because I hadn't eaten anything since the afternoon before, in New York, with Maxi.

"I know," I said, "I just can't remember what it was anymore."

"And you did think things through before you did it, right?"

I nodded.

"So you had to at least consider the possibility that he'd find somebody else?"

It felt like an impossibly long time ago, but I had considered it. At one point I'd even hoped for it, hoped for him to find some cute little Deadhead girl with ankle bracelets and armpit hair who'd stay up late and get high with him while I worked hard, sold my screenplays, and made Time magazine's "Thirty Under Thirty" list. Once upon a time, I'd been able to contemplate that scenario without tears, nausea, and/or feelings that I wanted to die, wanted to kill him, or wanted to kill him and then die.

"There were reasons things weren't working out," Samantha said.

"Tell me again what they were."

"He didn't like to go to movies," said Samantha.

"I go to movies with you."

"He didn't like to go anywhere!"

"So it'd kill me to stay home?" I poked the eclair so hard it toppled over, oozing custard. "He was a really good guy. A good, sweet guy. And I was a fool."

"Cannie, he compared you to Monica Lewinsky in a national magazine!"

"Well, that's not the worst thing in the world. It's not like he cheated on me."

"I know what this is about," said Samantha.

"What?"

"It's about wanting what you can't have. It's the law of the universe: He loved you, you felt bored and suffocated. Now he's moved on, and you're desperate to have him back. But think about it, Cannie... has anything really changed?"

I wanted to tell her that I had- that I'd gotten an up-close look at what else was out there in my personal dating universe, and that its name was Steve, it wore Tevas, and it didn't even consider a night out with me to be a date.

"You'd just wind up dumping him again, and that's really not fair."

"Why do I have to be fair?" I moaned. "Why can't I just be selfish and lousy and rotten, like everybody else?"

"Because you're a good person," she said. "Unfortunate as it may seem."

"How do you know?" I challenged her.

"Okay. You're walking Nifkin and you go past your car and you notice that if you pulled it up a few feet there'd be another parking s.p.a.ce, instead of just one of those annoying gaps that looks like a parking s.p.a.ce but isn't. Do you move the car?"

"Well, yeah... wouldn't you?"

"That's not the point. That's the evidence. You're a good person."

"I don't want to be a good person. I want to drive to New Jersey and kick that b.i.t.c.h out of his bed..."

"I know," she said. "But you can't."

"Why not?" I demanded.

"Because you'll wind up in jail, and I'm not going to take care of your weird little dog forever."

"Fine." I sighed.

The waiter came by, glancing at our plates. "Finished?"

I nodded. "All done. No more," I said.

Sam told me I could stay over if I wanted to, but I decided that I couldn't hide forever, so I hitched up Nifkin and went back home. I hauled myself up the stairs, with my hands full of Sat.u.r.day's mail, and there he was, right in front of my door. I saw him in stages- his scuffed-up, second-best sneakers... then mismatched athletic socks... then tanned, hairy legs came into view as I ascended. Sweatpants, an old college T-shirt, his goatee, his dirty-blond ponytail, his face. Ladies and gentlemen, fresh from his engagement with the Spring Squeaker, Bruce Guberman.

"Cannie?"

I felt so strange, as if my heart were trying to sink and rise at the same time. Or maybe it was just more nausea.

"Look," he said, "I, um, I'm sorry about last night."

"Nothing to apologize for," I said breezily, shouldering past him and unlocking the door. "What brings you here?"

He walked inside, keeping his eyes on his shoelaces and his hands in his pockets. "I'm on my way down to Baltimore, actually."

"How nice for you," I said, giving Nifkin a stern look in hopes that it would stop him from jumping up toward Bruce, his tail wagging triple-time. "I wanted to talk to you," he said.

"How nice for me," I replied.

"I was going to tell you. I wanted to tell you before you read about it," he said.

Oh, terrific. I was going to have to live it and read about it, too? "Read about it where?" I asked.

"In Moxie," he said.

"Actually, Moxie's not high on my reading list," I told him. "I already know how to give a good b.l.o.w. .j.o.b. As you may remember."

He took a deep breath, and I knew what it was, knew what was coming, the way you can feel the air pressure change and know that a storm's on the way. "I wanted to tell you that I'm kind of seeing somebody."

"Oh, really? You mean you didn't have your eyes shut the whole time last night?"

He didn't laugh.

"What's her name?"

"Cannie," he said gently.

"I refuse to believe that you found another girl named Cannie. Now tell me. C'mon. Age? Rank? Serial number?" I asked jokingly, hearing my voice as if from a million miles away.

"She's thirty-one... she's a kindergarten teacher. She's got a dog, too."

"That's great," I said sarcastically. "I bet we have lots and lots of other things in common. Let me guess... I'll bet she's got b.r.e.a.s.t.s! And hair!"

"Cannie..."

And then, because it was the only thing I could think of, "Where'd she go to school?"

"Um... Montclair State."

Great. Older, poorer, more dependent, less intelligent. I was dying to ask if she was blond, too, just to make the run of cliches complete.

"Do you love her?" I blurted instead.

"Cannie..."

"Never mind. I'm sorry. I had no right to ask you that. I'm sorry." And then, before I could stop myself, I asked, "Did you tell her about me?"

He nodded. "Of course I did."

"Well, what did you say?" A horrible thought struck me. "Did you tell her about my mom?"

Bruce nodded again, looking puzzled. "Why? What's the big deal?"

I shut my eyes, a.s.saulted by a sudden vision of Bruce and his new girl in his wide, warm bed, his arm wrapped companionably around her, telling my family secrets. "Her mother's gay, you know," he'd say, and the new girl would give a wise, professionally compa.s.sionate kindergarten-teacher nod, all the while thinking what a freak I must be.

From the bedroom, I heard choking noises. "Excuse me," I murmured, and ran into the bedroom, where Nifkin was busily regurgitating a Baggie. I cleaned up the mess and walked back to the living room. Bruce was standing in front of my couch. He hadn't sat down, hadn't so much as touched anything. I could tell just from looking at him how desperately he wanted to be back in his car with the windows rolled down and the Springsteen cranked up... to be away from me.

"Are you okay?"

I took a deep breath. I wish you were back with me, I thought. I wish I didn't have to hear this. I wish we'd never broken up. I wish we'd never met.

"Fine," I said. "I'm glad for you."

We were both quiet then.

"I hope we can be friends," said Bruce.

"I don't think so," I said.

"Well," he said, and paused, and I knew that he had nothing left to say to me, and that there was really only one thing he wanted to hear.

And so I said it. "Good-bye, Bruce," I said, and opened the door, and stood there, waiting, until he walked out.

Then it was Monday, and I was back at work, feeling both queasy and abidingly dumb. I was shuffling things around on my desk, half-heartedly going through my mail, which featured the usual spate of complaints from Old People, Angry, plus a collection of bitter missives from Howard Stern fans who were most displeased with the review I'd given his latest on-air venture. I was wondering whether I could simply come up with a form letter to the seventeen guys who'd accused me of being ugly, old, and jealous of Howard Stern, and signed themselves "Baba Booey," when Gabby sauntered over.