We headed for the door. "Oh, the stereo," I remembered, and walked back across the room to turn it off. As I turned I saw Patty skipping out of my apartment and into the hall like a hyper five-year-old on too much soda. I hustled out behind her to get to chopping.

Patty arranged quite a cornucopia of vegetables on her countertop. There were some normal ones-carrots, snow peas, and such-and then there were some scary-looking root vegetables that I could not have named if I was on a game show and the prize for doing so was a car. Patty was using a cleaver to chop and was whistling some unknown tune. I washed the odd vegetables and peeled them over the sink, using a paper towel as a low-rent drain screen. I was getting into it; the repet.i.tive motion and the revealing of bright, wet flesh underneath dirty peel was incredibly satisfying to my stoned self. It was a little quiet, so I asked, "Patty, can we put on a little cooking music?"

She held the cleaver in mid-chop and said, "Absolutely. Go in the living room, you'll see the stereo, just put on whatever. But something upbeat."

Oh my G.o.d oh my G.o.d and then it happened, I was out of the kitchen and in the living room, the never-before-seen inner sanctum, and I was both alone and high. Yes. It was the mirror image of my apartment in shape, but it was far more cluttered. There was a lifetime of "maybe I should hold on to this" in there. She had an old cracked brown leather sofa; on it were two throw pillows with crocheted images of dogs. Her coffee table was a steamer trunk with a giant ashtray on top, a stack of mail and a fan of books next to it. The walls, as much as I could see of them, were a pale yellow. They were covered with framed and unframed paintings, photographs, and ill.u.s.trations. A giant one, it must have been five feet diagonally, was of the Jackson Pollock school and took up almost the whole wall above her fireplace. In front of it, on her mantel, was a garish gold trophy. On the third and top tier of this was a male statuette with his hands held above his head. Carefully balanced on his hands was a still-packaged Twinkie. It was the sight of this that a.s.sured me my generation did not invent irony, as much as we may have thought so. I checked out some of the photographs crowded onto the narrow floor-to-ceiling strip of wall in between her windows. There were shots of Patty with friends or maybe family from a while back. In one black-and-white shot, she was holding a cigarette and leaning against a brick wall in what looked like Chinatown. Her other hand, by her side, was giving the photographer the finger. She must've been my age, maybe a little younger. She was pretty; she reminded me of what some of the girls looked like when you saw photographs of Lou Reed in Max's Kansas City in old magazines. Her bangs hung in her eyes, a small smile was screwed on lopsided. In this shot at least, she had it, that look of cool and youth that never went out of style: She just didn't give a f.u.c.k.

I started to feel like maybe I was snooping a bit too long, so I moved to the stereo, which was like the one I had growing up, an all-in-one Fisher with a record player on top. Next to the stereo, on a tall bookcase, were stacks and stacks of vinyl, hundreds of old LPs. I was giddy just staring at it. I thumbed through a few on top and found a rare one in a simple all-white sleeve, maybe even a bootleg, a live recording of Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash. I put it on the turntable and lowered the needle. It crackled to life. A song called "Mountain Dew" started up. Dylan sang in his nasal, country voice, "My Uncle Mort, he's sawed off and short, he measure about four foot two..." When the chorus came, Johnny and Bob harmonized in an odd but beautiful way. "They call it that good ol' mountain dew, and those who refuse it are few." With the warmth of the a.n.a.log sound and the needle pops I felt like maybe I had flicked a switch and sent myself back in time. I was considering turning on Patty's TV to see if the Vietnam War was still under way; the set definitely looked like it dated from that time period, and I was thinking maybe it was so old it could only tune in the seventies. Anchormen would smoke Lucky Strikes and Johnny Carson would make jokes about hippies while sporting an Indian headdress.

"Good choice," Patty yelled from the kitchen. "Dylan is my absolute favorite!" I hurried back toward the kitchen but something stopped me. I saw words in small writing low on the wall, just above the molding. I got on my knee and saw it was a tiny diagram with arrows. The one pointing toward my apartment said "Jason." One pointing down said "Robert," and another pointing up said "Rachel."

Patty had finished the chopping, so I headed out to grab some beers while she "seasoned" the wok. I went into the deli; Bobby wasn't there yet. I was disappointed for a moment because I was excited to see him when I was sober. But then I realized that even if I hadn't had a drink, technically being high as s.h.i.t didn't really qualify as sober to most people. The guy working the register was absolutely blasting Madonna, which was just about the funniest thing I had ever seen, an empty bodega, lit bright by fluorescents, tended by a balding, middle-aged Indian humming along to "Holiday." I moved to the beat over to the beers, smiling, and tried to decide on one. I wanted to go with our Asian theme. The closest they had was Pacifico, and since the Pacific was on the way to Asia, that was that was that. I also grabbed a pint of Ben and Jerry's Phish Food. I could take or leave that band's jammy music, but they sure inspired a d.a.m.n good ice cream. I brought the items to the counter, paid, and left the man and his Madonna in peace, hoping that maybe later, he might vogue.

When I got back to Patty's she was cooking with a fury. It smelled pretty good too. I snuck the ice cream into the freezer and cracked open a couple of beers for us. "So Patty," I said, watching her work the overfilled wok, "those are some great pictures of you in the other room. The one in Chinatown is awesome."

"You think?" she said without looking up, focused on moving the sizzling vegetables around. "Thanks. That was a while ago. I don't give people the finger nearly as much now," she laughed. "Hey, are you hungry? Because I think we might've been too high when estimating how much we needed."

"I'm still high..."

"Me too!" she slipped in.

"...so I'm pretty hungry. Don't worry. Better to have too much than too little."

"That's my philosophy on food too." She stopped working the wooden spoon and looked up at me. "My arm is killing me. Time for you to take over. It's almost done."

I took the spoon and made with the stirring. The veggies crackled and smoked in the oil. "Hey, can I ask you something? Like, back when that picture was taken, what were you doing in life?"

Patty was pulling plates from her cupboard. "Then I was working at this store that made custom leather pants for rock people and folk singers. They were all the rage. People wore them every day, and once they started to stretch they'd come back and we'd readjust them. It was on Sixth Avenue, above a bagel place a couple of blocks from Washington Square. It was fun. The store was by appointment only so we didn't really work that much. It was cheaper in New York then, you didn't have to kill yourself."

I kept the vegetables moving. Some of the onions were starting to burn but the squash-looking bits still looked raw. I wanted to know more about Patty but I didn't want to be pushy. "So, how long did you do that for?"

"Oh G.o.d, just a couple years," she said, taking out cutlery. "Watch that-is something burning?" She stepped over and took a look into the wok. "Okay, just one more minute and that is done."

I turned down the heat and moved the wok off the burner. I dumped the contents into a bowl Patty had left on the side, sneaking a bite of broccoli. Not bad. "And like, what other jobs did you do after that?" I asked, sheepishly.

"My goodness, Jason, are you interviewing me for a position in your firm?" she asked. I was mortified until she laughed. "C'mon, let's eat and I'll give you the short version."

She cleaned off the steamer trunk and we sat down to eat. Stoned, we had completely forgotten to make the rice. So we ate the tasty vegetables and drank beer, and she briefly gave me her work history. After the leather-pants store, Patty had bartended for a few years at the White Horse, which explained why I saw her outside there every once in a while. After that she was a dog walker. "I controlled all of the NYU area. Me and this guy Paco, we had a little dog-walking service together-Hip Pups. We were like the dog mafia. It was the world's greatest job any season but winter. We made a lot of tips at Christmas, though; no one wanted to be cheap to the person taking care of their dog. Guilt money." Paco had died twelve years ago from what sounded like AIDS without her actually saying it, and she had sold "the territory" to some corporate dog-walking company. "They don't even screen who they hire. But they offered me a lot of cash, and it made me sad to do it without Paco." Since then, she still walked a few dogs in the neighborhood, "my babies," and bartended one Sat.u.r.day a month at the White Horse.

We carried the dishes back into the kitchen. "So, Jason," Patty asked, putting her plate in the sink, "any serious girls in your life?"

"Nah," I said, handing her mine. "I did go out with this one girl a couple of times recently, but I haven't heard from her in a while."

"b.u.mmer. How long has it been?"

"Two weeks."

"Ooh."

"Yeah, and the thing is, I know this is silly, but she has this pair of my pants I sort of really want back."

"That's awkward. It might be best to just remember them fondly."

"I know, I know. But what's she going to do with them, it's not like she's going to wear them. She could put them in the mail, or whatever."

"Yeah, but sometimes, Jason," said Patty turning on the tap, "you just have to go out and buy yourself a new pair of pants."

After she washed the dishes, I busted out the ice cream and we polished off the pint. Patty lit up a cigarette and had another one of those coughing fits. It was pretty nasty, and I didn't say anything at the time. But a half-hour later as we bid each other good night, both our eyes heavy with sleep, I couldn't help myself.

"Hey, um, my friend who's getting married is a resident at Cornell Med, and he could probably recommend someone who could check out those allergies, cheap, if you wanted." We stood in her doorway.

"Thanks, neighbor. I have a doctor, though. Don't worry." She gave me a hug. "Sweet dreams."

I went into my apartment. It was midnight. I washed and brushed and got under the covers feeling sated. I rolled over, got comfortable, and finally let my lids shut.

I was a little worried, though.

8.

And then it was Monday. I sat at the reception desk and made a sesame bagel with b.u.t.ter last as long as it could. There wasn't much to look forward to after that. Melinda was in the back running a casting session for nuns for some movie, so there were actresses trying to look nunly sitting on the benches in the waiting area. Unfortunately the specs must have been for older nuns, real ruler-slappers; there were none I wanted to tempt toward the sins of the flesh.

I hopped on Instant Messenger to see what was happening with the kids. I hadn't caught up yet with Tina to see how her night with Brett had ended up, and I hadn't talked with Stacey in ages. Both were on my to-do list.

doodyball5: so...was it tinadoll: yes princess?

doodyball5: proposed to over brunch?

tinadoll: nope...but it has a crush tinadoll: just made out. im no s.l.u.t doodyball5: yes u r tinadoll: that's true! he is sooo cute!

doodyball5: you guys can share gel and talk about jeans tinadoll: did u soil either of those two girls?

doodyball5: nope tinadoll: pants?

doodyball5: not yet tinadoll: im picturing a nice oven mitt doodyball5: i did do something tho...

tinadoll: oh christ...you called the pants police?

doodyball5: i drank and emailed tinadoll: have i taught u nothing!?

tinadoll: how bad was it? did u tell her u love her?

doodyball5: i just asked her to give me the d.a.m.n pants back tinadoll: response?

doodyball5: radio silence tinadoll: you should've went all-out crazy, threatened to kill yourself or something tinadoll: kidding. don't sweat it. if it makes u feel better, ive done far worse doodyball5: like the time you gave the entire east village crabs?

tinadoll: you cant prove that doodyball5: heh. hey have you talked to stacey lately?

tinadoll: no. let's start a chatroom. stacey and eric hold...

stace has entered the room.

tinadoll: stacey!!!

doodyball5: stace?

stace: hi doodyball5: h.e.l.lo h.e.l.lo. what're you doing tonight?

stace: i have my women's legal group and then i'm going to a party with ali's friend mallory doodyball5: where? we're coming!

stace: a bar on 13 and A. some dorky internet party of some kind doodyball5: well, wouldn't you like to hang out with me?

tinadoll: speaking of internet dorks...

doodyball5: will your party allow guests?

tinadoll: i'm not drinking tonight doodyball5: lie tinadoll: i have alcoholism tinadoll: bad

e-diddy has entered the room.

tinadoll: yes!!!!

e-diddy: how's my doodyball? stacey? sweetie?

doodyball5: stacey is too busy for your love tinadoll: speaking of...i just fell in love e-diddy: w/?

tinadoll: a boy e-diddy: yup, tell more tinadoll: s.h.i.t. i gotta go rock the house. see you all in h.e.l.l e-diddy: me too bye

e-diddy has left the room.tinadoll has left the room.

doodyball5: whoa-is this party over?

stace: hi doodyball5: oh hi miss bizzy stace: that plus i cant type fast enough. all good?

doodyball5: status quo. u? been a while...

stace: I know! gonna have to catch up soon doodyball5: over ketchup doodyball5: btw...I wrote scott stace: woohoo! and...?

doodyball5: didn't sound too promising, but he said to send some writing samples stace: that's something doodyball5: yeah, now i just need writing samples stace: you could do that fast, jason. send them soon and then keep checking in with him doodyball5: that's the plan stace: you have to be persistent doodyball5: no doubt stace: so...you know what happens this week, rt? your first rabbi cla.s.s doodyball5: i will pick out a good outfit stace: i emailed you the info. weds 7 to 10 doodyball5: I am ready to rabbi stace: k gotta go. next weekend dinner or drink or something?

doodyball5: yep stace: call and tell me how cla.s.s goes. bye doodyball5: wait, don't go yet. im bored as b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l

stace has left the room.

doodyball5: b.a.l.l.s

doodyball5 has left the room.

Melinda emerged from the back and pulled up a chair next to me at the desk.

"So, were the nuns fun?" I asked.

"So fun. They were all trying to act very serious and pious. Not one smile on that casting tape, that's for sure."

"Is it almost time for lunch? I'm getting the shakes," I said.

Melinda glanced at the schedule. "Yeah, I think we're cool. Let me just tell Sara that we're going out together so she'll answer the phone."