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head sideways so she was glaring at me cockeyed. “Yeah, so what if I am?”
    “Nothing. I mean, I came here today to get the new issue. And to meet you.”
    She turned and faced me, hands on her hips. She reminded me of a little bitty Clint Eastwood or something. “How did you know I was coming today?”
    “It says so in the zine. Number two will be available on March second, which is today.” I was beginning to feel stupid looking up at her from the floor, so I slid back up the wall until I was towering over her, even though I’m only five foot ten. She backed up.
    “So, is Marisol your real name, or a nom de plume? You know, a name you use …”
    “I know what a nom de plume is. I’m not an idiot.”
    I didn’t seem to be coming off too well. “So, it’s your name then?”
    “What are you, the FBI? Yeah, it’s my name, all right?” She hiked her black backpack up on one shoulder and turned to go.
    “So …” I didn’t know what else to say. Here was the person who wrote all that great stuff in Escape Velocity and I wasn’t saying the right things to get her to stick around. “Aren’t you going to take copies of any of the other zines?”
    She shrugged. “I have subscriptions to the ones I like. If I read all this stuff, I wouldn’t have time to do my own writing.”
    I gave up on subtlety and held out a copy of Bananafish . “You might like this one.”
    Marisol rolled her eyes and fingered the magazine away from me like she didn’t want to get her hands dirty. She flipped through the first few pages.
    “It’s mine,” I said.
    “No kidding. What a shock.” She kept reading, though.
    “Take it home, why don’t you? It’s free.”
    “Such a deal.” She flipped back to the cover. “So, Giovanni. Is that your nom de plume?”
    She was like a grenade that was about to go off in my hand. How the hell could I tell her my name was John? Nobody was named John anymore—it was a 1950s name. A name for your annoying uncle.
    “My family’s Italian,” I said, skirting the issue. Not a total lie. Galardi is Italian, after all, even though we’re about six generations removed from the hills of Tuscany.
    “Yeah? Well, I’m a Puerto Rican Cuban Yankee lesbian, so that puts me a lot higher on the exotic scale than you, Giovanni Italian.” She gave me a wallop on the arm with my own zine. “So, I’ll take this home and look it over.”
    This time she did turn and leave, quickly, slipping through the revolving doors without even touching them.
    I grabbed a copy of Escape Velocity #2 in the hand that still held No Regrets and raced out the door. She was already half a block down Newbury Street.
    “Wait a minute!” I called out, jogging after her. “How about—do you want to go get an ice cream or something? And talk?”
    Marisol turned around. “ Ice cream? It’s freezing out here! What are you, trying to pick me up? I told you I’m a lesbian.”
    “Absolutely not,” I told her, just a little offended. “I’m not interested in that. I mean, it’s better that you’re a lesbian. I don’t really like girls much.” I knew I’d screwed myself the minute it came out. Her arms plowed into her waistline.
    “For your information, dickhead, lesbians are girls. Don’t they teach sex ed in your school system?”
    “That’s not … I said it wrong because you’re making me nervous. I feel like I have to say everything fast or you’ll run away.”
    She glared at me another few seconds and then her lip twisted up a little, like it might be considering smiling. “Okay. I’m not running. Slow down and say it right.”
    I started over, slowly. “I mean, I’m not looking for a girlfriend. I just want to talk to you. About writing. About your zine. We could get coffee if you don’t want ice cream.” I hated coffee, but it seemed like the kind of thing a Puerto Rican Cuban Yankee lesbian writer would order at eleven o’clock in the morning.
    Marisol shrugged again. “Well, I got a little