Quite suddenly, Ryan feels extremely pleased with himself. An erotic charge of satisfaction surges through his body. He looks lustfully at his fiancée, somewhat surprised to find that she is still there.

Her hair shines, her face is perfect, her nails gleam, her skin is smooth as glass. The relationship between her and the curl of beet she is contemplating is entirely without entropy, a universe which has long since ceased to expand. She is as self-contained as an egg.

The electricity charging his nerves dissipates abruptly, and his sudden elation is replaced by an equally sudden feeling of irritation. He puts down his fork heavily. The sound of silver on porcelain makes her look up.

“Why would they put a curl of beet on the salad?” she sneers melodiously. “No one likes beets.”

“Some people obviously do,” he says, flashing her one of his sandpaper grins designed to smooth out rough patches.

He’s perfected these grins, he uses them often. It helps to grin, he’s noticed, even when you feel like tearing someone’s throat out.

Life has apparently taught her the same lesson. A polite, fleeting smile dances across her lips, replaced quickly by a pretty little frown as she returns to her contemplation of the despised curl of beet.

It is Ryan’s 40th birthday.

He gives his fiancée a good-night peck and doesn’t wait for the elevator doors to slide shut before he turns and walks away. His fiancée must be in bed by 11 p.m. precisely, for she must be at the gym early the next morning to exorcise any fatty demons the arugula and goat cheese may have introduced into her pure corpus. She is utterly composed of routine and habit; if she is not in bed by 11 p.m. precisely, she might start breaking things. The moment his lips leave the cold flesh of her cheek, he ceases to think about her. She ceases to exist.

He goes back into the restaurant, to its clean elegant bar filled with fresh-looking young people. The counter is made of zinc and there are cobalt-blue vases with yellow gerbera daisies in them. He sits, drinking steadily, the zinc cooling his elbows.