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and also drank. I'd had my answer, though not as I'd wanted it, from Adam's mouth. I don't even know whether Flour or the two men had any understanding of what had happened—for all Roberta had told us, the man in question could have been someone other than Adam. Strangely, it was as if he and I were allies, having each forced confession from the other's woman. Except that neither woman was mine, and both might be his.
    “A beautiful story it is,” said Adam Cressner. “With that we'll see our dear guests to the door, yes?”
    No one resisted. The spell was broken.
We
were in some way broken, shattered by the game, unable to recover any sense of delight in one another's company, if we'd ever had that—I no longer knew. We cleared bottles, shuffled chairs, mumbled excuses, made promises to be in touch, to forward one another's e-mail addresses, which rang hollow. Within ten minutes we were out on the street, each headed home alone. At least I think we were alone. Certainly Doe strolled away, apart from the others, a tiny figure vanishing on the pavement, before I'd turned my back and descended into my basement entrance, before I'd even had a chance to wish her good night or kiss her equivocally on the cheek. It's possible one of Flour's suitors followed her home, but I doubt it. It had all been a little much for us poor singles, the tyranny of the Vision and the Scarlet Witch.

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    T HERE WAS A START-UP ABOUT A HALF MILE ahead the day before, a fever of distant engines and horns honking as others signaled their excitement—a chance to move!—and so he'd spent the day jammed behind the wheel, living in his Apartment on Tape, waiting for that chance, listening under the drone of distant helicopters to hear the start-up make its way downtown. But the wave of revving engines stalled before reaching his street. He never even saw a car move, just heard them. In fact he couldn't remember seeing a car move recently. Perhaps the start-up was only a panic begun by someone warming their motor, reviving their battery. That night he'd dreamed another start-up, or perhaps it was real, a far-off flare that died before he'd even ground the sleep out of his eyes, though in the rustle of his waking thoughts it was a perfect thing, coordinated, a dance of cars shifting through the free-flowing streets. Dream or not, either way, didn't matter. He fell back asleep. What woke him in the morning was the family in the Pacer up ahead cooking breakfast. They had a stove on the roof of their car and the dad was grilling something they'd bought from the flatbed shepherd two blocks away, a sheepsteak or something. It smelled good. Everything about the family in the Pacer made him too conscious of his wants. The family's daughter—she was beautiful—had been working as Advertising, pushing up against and through the One-Way Permeable Barrier on behalf of some vast faceless corporation. That being the only way through the One-Way Permeable Barrier, of course. So the family, her ma and pa, were flush, had dough, and vendors knew to seek them out, hawking groceries. Whereas checking his pockets he didn't have more than a couple of dollars. There was a coffee-and-doughnuts man threading his way through the traffic even now but coffee was beyond his means. He needed money. Rumors had it Welfare Helicopters had been sighted south of East One Thousand, One Hundred and Ninety-Fourth Street, and a lot of people had left their cars, drifted down that way, looking for easy cash. Which was one reason the start-up died, it occurred to him—too many empty cars. Along with the cars that wouldn't start anymore, like the old lady in the Impala beside him, the dodderer. She'd given up, spent most days dozing in the backseat. Her nephew from a few blocks away came over and tinkered with her engine now and again but it wasn't helping. It just meant the nephew wasn't at his wheel for the start-up, another dead spot, another reason not to bother waiting to