Then one day around Christmas, her boyfriend broke up with her. I didn't know this at the time. He lived in another city halfway across the state. He'd been stringing her along for years. He was one of those horrible mild guys. You know? Really earnest and caring all the time. Narrowed his eyes a lot and nodded without lowering his chin, his lips all pursed and serious. For about five years, he used this New Man sensitivity to manipulate Cathy into hanging around. Then he met someone he liked more, and Cathy was out.

Anyway, our office Christmas party came along. Everyone was drinking and singing and getting up to mischief and so forth. I wasn't much of a drinker anymore, so after a while I took a stroll through the back offices to get some quiet. There was Cathy. She was sitting at her desk in the dark with a paper cup full of bourbon. She wasn't drunk or anything. She was just sitting there, staring into space. I peeked my head in her door.

"Everything all right?" I asked.

"I hate my life," she told me. This was a woman I'd said maybe twenty sentences to in the year since I'd been working for Tyner. "I did everything right, everything my mother said. She was a feminist, my mother, very fierce. She said I could have it all. She told me what to do, and I did it. I got good grades, the best grades. I went to law school. I got a big job. I never depended on anyone. I even played softball when I was in high school. I hate softball."

This sounded like the start of a long evening. I went into her office and sat down across the desk from her.