“I remember.”

“For days,” I said, “all I did was fart.” I frowned. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize now, Bern. That was a year and a half ago.”

“I’m not sorry I farted. I’m sorry I mentioned it. It’s not terribly elegant, is it? Talking about farting. Damn, I just did it again.”

“Bern.”

“I don’t mean I farted again. I mentioned it again, that’s all. Isn’t it amazing that I’ll ordinarily go weeks on end without using the word ‘fart,’ and all of a sudden I can’t seem to get through a sentence without it?”

“Bern, what I was thinking—”

“So I’d better not have any burritos tonight. I mean, if I can’t even handle the whole concept verbally—”

“I thought Indian food.”

“Hmmm.”

“Or maybe Italian.”

“Maybe.”

“Or Thai.”

“Always a possibility,” I said. A thought started to slip past me on the right, and I extended a mental foot and sent it sprawling. “But I’m afraid tonight’s out of the question,” I said. “I must plead a previous engagement.”

“You were going to cancel the Gilmartins,” she said. “Remember?”

“Not the Gilmartins. My date’s with Patience. Isn’t that a great name?”

“It is, Bern.”

“Deliriously old-fashioned, you might say.”

“You might,” she agreed. “She’s the poet, right?”

“She’s a poetry therapist,” I said. “She has an MSW from NYU. Or is it an MSU from NYW?”

“I think you were right the first time.”

“Maybe it’s a BMW,” I said, “from PDQ. Anyway, what she does is work with emotionally disturbed people, teaching them to express their innermost feelings through poetry. That way nobody will realize they’re crazy. They’ll just think they’re poets.”

“Does it work?”

“I guess so. Of course Patience is a poet, too, besides being a poetry therapist.”