uber-critical of me and after a while wanted to sleep with other guys. No, that didn’t work. Gentile women just happened to be the ones I met, when I wasn’t seeing anyone, and got involved with. Lived with three — only women I ever lived with — almost married one, wanted to marry a fourth but she was in too ugly and hopeless a marriage to want to give it up. Talk about disasters? Every last one of these relationships…involvements…love affairs…call them what you want: disasters, became one for me, and with a couple of them, though I should have known better, two and three times. She phones me; she drops by my apartment unexpectedly: she’s waiting for me after work in my office building lobby: she sticks a note under my door, and I get sucked into it again. One was estranged — am I going on too much about this?” and she said “Finish.” “Estranged from her mother, sister, brother, even her twelve-year-old daughter, not to say her ex-husband, all of whom I met and they seemed to be nice- and reasonable-enough people and her daughter a dear, so what act of idiocy made me think she wouldn’t ultimately estrange herself from me? Did all of these not work out because I was Jewish, unreligious and nonobservant as I’ve been since my bar mitzvah? Maybe, or had to be, or more than a little. That’s why I said before, which you might have taken umbrage with or simply didn’t like, that I was glad you were Jewish. Fact is, for want of a better word this moment — maybe because I am so thrilled — I’m thrilled. I’m sitting and talking with a Jewish woman and having one heck of a good time and hope she is too. So that’s what I wanted to say. ‘Parallel,’ I don’t know, but nothing much, right?” and she said “I won’t comment.” “You can if you want.” And she said “I don’t want. Except to say that this is all quite interesting. I’ve never before been complimented just for being Jewish, and it’s true, I don’t think I like it.” He said “While I was saying it I knew I was being excessive and I apologize for making you feel uncomfortable and hope it doesn’t make you want to run out of here without me.” And she said “Little chance of that. I don’t go in for dramatics. But I am glad you’re not religious. Though being a wee bit observant, like sitting down for the Passover Seder the first night and going through the ceremony quickly is all right, but I have a real hard time with yeshiva boys.” He said “I was bar mitzvahed in an Orthodox synagogue — W.S.I.S., on West 76th, just a block from where we lived — and tutored for it by rabbinical students who wore tsitsis and peyes. Does that count against me?” and she said “Peyes, I know, but tsitsis?” and he told her. “I also come from a family where my father, on both nights, used to do the entire ceremony a lot less than quickly, but I used to love the four small glasses they allowed me of sweet wine.” “I thought it was only three,” she said, and he said “Not if you complete that part of the ceremony that’s supposed to take place after the dinner. Anyway, I thought I’d get it all out in the open now,” and she said “I think you’re safe.” How did they end up with an English muffin? The coffee and tea is easy. The counterman came over — they’d just sat down; he’d taken off his jacket and scarf and put them on the stool next to him; she kept her coat on, maybe because she was cold, he thought; as for remembering he had a scarf: he always wore one from around November first on — and asked what they would have, they said one coffee and one tea, and the man said “Anything to go with it?” It seemed from his expression and way he said it that if they were going to take up two stools for themselves and one for his clothes, even though there were no other customers at the counter, they should have more than a coffee and tea, and he said to her “Like to have a sandwich or bowl or cup of soup if they have them, or a pastry?” and she said “I’m not hungry, thanks,” and he said “How about an English muffin?” and she seemed to pick up by the way he glanced at the counterman and then right back at her that they should have more than what they ordered, and she said “That’d be okay, if you’ll split it with me,” and he said “You like it toasted well done or just regular?” and she said “Since you’ll be eating most of it, you choose,” and he said to the man “Also one fairly well toasted English muffin, please. Butter on the side and…jam or jelly do you like?” he asked her and the man said “We only have jelly, those little packets,” and he said “Honey would be good too,” and she said to the man “I’ll take the jelly, thanks.” They ate and drank. She finished her half of the muffin and said “That was good, toasted that way.” He had a second coffee, asked her if she wanted some more tea and she said “One cup’s enough for me if it’s not herbal. I should have asked.” “You can have an herbal tea if you want,” he said, and she said “No, I’m fine.” He later regretted the second coffee. When they were getting ready to leave he knew he’d have to pee soon because of the coffee and asked the counterman if there was a men’s room here. The man said “Only for store personnel, but you can use the one off the Ansonia lobby,” and directed him to the door at the back of the drugstore to get there. He knows he asked her sometime in the store “Are you cold?” and she said “Not at all; why?” and he said “I really meant, would you be cold if you didn’t have your coat on?” and she said “When I’m in a place like this and there’s no coat hook or rack, I usually like to leave it on. It’s big and bulky and if I fold it up and put it on a stool as you did with yours, it would only fall off.” He thinks he forgot to mention that when he first got to the drugstore and saw she wasn’t waiting outside — he thought she might have got there early — he went inside to see if she was there. There was no one at the counter but the man behind it, reading a tabloid, probably the