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There was a e: Jack had called and would call again later It didn’t say to call hied my mind and called him after all, and there was no answer

Saturday started out cold and rainy I skipped breakfast and wound up ordering an early lunch from the deli down the block The kid who delivered it bore an unsettling reseer tip than usual

I spent the afternoon in front of the TV, switching back and forth between a couple of college football ga at, but it was better than being out in the rain, and I figured I’d be in one place long enough for Jack to get hold ofI picked it up myself a couple of ti in a curious way, because I didn’t really have a burning desire to talk to him, but neither did I want to be haunted by an endless streae slips

So I sat there inout theat the rain

Jan and I had arranged to meet at a restaurant at Mulberry and Hester, in Little Italy We’d been there a couple of tiether and liked the food and the atmosphere I was a few minutes early, and they couldn’t find our reservation but had a table for us, and Jan showed up ten minutes late The food was fine, the service was fine, and I could have flavored the conversation by pointing out a stocky gentleman at the bar whom I’d arrested ten or a dozen years earlier

We ht have walked around after dinner, but it was still drizzling and there was a chill in the air, so ent straight to Lispenard Street and she han, Ella, Eydie Gormé It should have been just the ticket for a rainy October night, domestic and romantic at the same time, but there’d been a stiffness at dinner, a distance between us, and it didn’t go away

I thought, Is this it? Is this how I’ll spend every Saturday night for the rest of ht, with an all-night jazz station on the radio, and lying together in the dark, we did each other so in the shadows out there on the edge of thought I turned away from it, and sleep descended like a fast curtain

So some clothes at Jan’s place She’d turned over one of the dresser drawers to ers in the closet So I had clean socks and underwear to put on aftershower, and a clean shirt, and I left what I’d been wearing for her to wash

"You’re co up on a year," she said at breakfast "What is it, a month away?"

"Five, six weeks Soht she’d have more to say about that, but if she did she decided to leave it unsaid

That night I met Jim Faber at a Chinese restaurant on Ninth Avenue Neither of us had been there before, and we decided it was all right, but nothing special I told hiht about it, and then he re up on a year sober

"She said the sa?"

He shrugged, waiting for me to answer es in the first year’ Isn’t that the conventional wisdom?"

"It’s what they say"

"In other words, I’ve got five or six weeks, whatever the hell it is, to decide what to do about my relationship with Jan"

"No"

"No?"

"You’ve got five or six weeks," he said, "not to decide"

"Oh"

"You get the distinction?"

"I think so"

"You don’t have to e when the year’s up You don’t have to co The i is not to take any action before then"

"Got it"

"On the other hand," he said, "e’re talking about here is your agenda She may have one of her own You’re sober a year, it’s tiht?"

"Maybe"

"You know," he said, "that business about waiting a year, that’s just a general rule Soes for the first five years"

"You’re kidding, right?"