Everything Changes

with.”
    She frowns. “I wouldn’t know where to begin. Rael was the only guy I ever trusted. I never really had a serious relationship before him.”
    “There’s no rush,” I say. “You’ll know when you’re ready.”
    I’m picturing the men that Tamara will date. They will all be taller and broader than me, with perfect, low hairlines, the kind that come to a point in the middle of each temple, like arrows, forming a rectangular forehead under a muscular bush of thick dark hair. They will be thick-necked men of independent means who manage hedge funds and drive German sports cars. Men who can wear Armani suit jackets over dark silk T-shirts without seeming like hopeless poseurs and who will think nothing of inviting her for a weekend escape to wine country after only two or three dates. Men who will be conspicuously respectful of the role I’ve played for Tamara even as they propel me to the perimeter, marginalizing me with their condescending chumminess.
    She leans her head against my shoulder and squeezes my arm. “You’ll have to screen them for me,” she says. “Anyone who wants a date will have to go through you.”
    If so, none will make the cut. I will lay down a perimeter of land mines and bear traps, the kind you have to gnaw your own leg off to get out of. Let’s see how great you look in your Armani hopping around on one leg.
    I pat her leg companionably and lean my head on hers. “You’ll be fine,” I tell her. “You’re smart, beautiful, and compassionate. Any guy would kill to have you.”
I would kill to have you.
    “Zack,” she says softly, changing the subject.
    “Yeah.”
    “Don’t be sick. You’re all I’ve got.”
    “I’ll do what I can,” I say.
    “I mean, God’s already screwed me. He wouldn’t do it again so quickly. It would just be too much.”
    Tamara’s theology is all over the map, from God to horoscopes, the one consistent thread being an uncompromising certainty that there are unseen forces at work shaping our fate and that every action has potentially cosmic consequences.
    “Okay. Then I’ll try not to let you down.”
    She gives me a gentle shove. “You know what I mean.”
    “I do,” I say. “Thanks.”
    She looks up and gives my chin a quick, friendly kiss before settling back down on my shoulder. We sit on the swing in silence, rocking to the rhythm of Sophie’s light snoring, and I’m thinking that I’ve mind-fucked myself something fierce here, and wondering how the hell I’m going to undo it.

Chapter 7
    The day Rael died, he called me at work. “Vegas, baby,” he said.
    “What?”
    “Let’s go to Vegas.”
    “Okay,” I said. “When do you want to go?”
    “Tonight.”
    “Yeah,” I said, absently responding to an e-mail. “That’s not going to happen.”
    “Come on, Zack,” he said. “Live a little. You’re young and single.”
    “And you’re old and married,” I said. “I still can’t go.”
    “Zacky.”
    “Raely.”
    “I’ve spent the better part of our lives talking you into enjoying yourself,” Rael said. “You always say no, then I go to work on you, and in the end you agree and, nine times out of ten, end up having a better time than me. So why don’t you save us both the time and pretend I’ve already spent a half hour talking you into it, and let’s book our flights.”
    “Well,” I said. “At least I can save you the half hour, because I can tell you that barring an act of God, there’s no way in hell I can get on a plane to Vegas tonight. I’m working on about seven different deadlines, and I’m having dinner tomorrow night with Hope’s parents.”
    “Fuck ’em,” he said. “It’s Vegas, baby.”
    “And I’ll have to confiscate your copy of
Swingers
.”
    He sighed. “Zacky.”
    “Raely.”
    “I knew you were going to say no,” he said.
    “Good. You know how I hate to disappoint.”
    “And that’s why we’re going to the Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa in Atlantic City!” He delivers this last line as if I’ve just won a living room set on
Wheel of Fortune. Thanks a lot, Pat. I just wonder how the hell we’re going to fit that into our trailer.
    “Are you serious?” I said.
    “As a heart attack.”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Come on. It’ll be just like the old days.”
    “We didn’t gamble in the old days.”
    “It will be the old days we should have had,” he said.
    “I hate gambling.”
    “It’s not about gambling.”
    “Atlantic City is not about