Before bringing up the blind date, the colleague had asked a few too many pointed questions about whether she’d had any suspicions, wondering if there was a reason the boyfriend might have wanted out and sought an affair.

Is there ever a reason, really?

Well, yes. Not that anything was her fault.

My fault? She wanted to get up and let the hollow metal chair skid loudly backwards but she was still enduring some jetlag.

The colleague had asked about their dynamic, and she said he’d seemed happy as part of a working pair, the components of which proving ever more capable the longer they lasted. This is what people connote when they say power couple, she’d said, a couple who make one another powerful, each success multiplied by its proximal support. Power couple isn’t really a term of endearment, he’d corrected. It’s something said with resentment, usually.

Get this, she kept saying, over a second negroni in London’s twilight. They had attended a wedding together, and that was supposed to mean something, right? They were photographed in coordinating clothing, at a ceremony intended to confirm a bond between two but also the guests as an entity, the friend group, including partners. Get this. But the more she had spoken, the more it sounded like any generic romance, and most of those didn’t last; most were dashed apart by temptation, faded to friendship, singed to a burden that one day had wasted someone’s best years…

You’re better off. She knew her colleague didn’t mean it, but the next morning, she awoke feeling just that. Looking out the window at a different sky, hearing other birdsongs, knowing she was in a different time zone and part of another history, a coolness rushed over her, from between her eyes to her feet. For the first time in many, many years, she didn’t have a cup of coffee. She simply didn’t feel like one. Even knowing that was novel.

After the day’s meetings, she stopped in a boutique and misted herself with a fragrance sample. She breathed deeply. I need this, she said to the clerk, who was reading behind the register. A fresh scent for a new beginning.

That’s my favorite one, too. It reminds me of another time. The clerk put her book down, faced the window, and smiled. Maybe she’s blind, she wondered, even if the book said otherwise.

The date was waiting at a convenient, nondescript pub. He was not her usual type. Smiling, eager eyes, perfect teeth, basically what came to mind when her colleague had said he’s from Lisbon but lives in Geneva, here in London on business, too. He stood when she arrived, then sat back down on a stool next to her. He wore a watch, and she tried to make a joke about Swiss timing, but the language barrier was just tall enough that jokes couldn’t jump over it, and so they settled on small talk about work, upbringings, whatever.

Minutes stretched by. She treated this as another job. To get over someone…

He kept smiling when there was nothing to smile about. She started to hate his teeth, how wet and white they were. They had been there for at least an hour when, either due to the time difference, the beer, the new beginning, or the lack of coffee, she found herself saying aloud the words that were being repeated in her mind, like popcorn spilling out of a kettle. She did not even notice, at first, that the sounds were making waves in the air—but they were, resonating on his eardrums. This isn’t going well, she said.

Is it not? For the first time, he was interested in her answer. He leaned forward, stared into each of her eyes. Before she could respond, he’d lifted a hand and ordered them another round. And then they were going over the details of their date thus far as if it was another business presentation: the problem was that it was a contrived scenario that relied on the idea that they’d ever see one another again. This wasn’t supposed to be polite, they agreed. If anything, it was supposed to be carnal. Now, they were not able to slow their conversation—the same conversation that had been continuously stalling only seconds ago.

I have an idea, he said. Do you like women? The question felt irrelevant. Let’s triangulate. He raised his hand again and asked to settle his tab.

They were in a car, guided ahead by the ground speeding away beneath them. They described, in fragments, their hang-ups from previous relationships, and assured each other that none of those things would ever matter again.

They kissed, and she touched his chest, which felt, under her hand, broad. She’d never thought of a chest under her hand as broad before. She asked about the friend he was texting. He didn’t tell her much.

I know you’ll like each other.

You don’t know me, though, she said, intending it to sound like an invitation. They were dropped off at a nice hotel. She walked behind him through the automatic doors, across a vast golden carpet, into a tiny elevator. She pulled his head to hers, kissed his open mouth, raised a knee to place a thigh onto the outside of his leg. The door opened to more golden carpet.

He led her down the hall, grinning, and she was not angered or annoyed by this. If all she wanted from him was all he wanted from her, there was nothing to be annoyed with. Every feature of his was better because it was not one with which she could fall in love. His eyes were too soft, his lashes like a donkey’s, his hands almost womanly, she saw, as they took each of hers and placed them, bizarrely, on his face, as they stopped to kiss again.

The door unlocked with the wave of a card and was pushed open, revealing a room recently tidied by housekeeping—another part of his personality obscured by circumstance. Already, someone was calling his phone. He announced the room number and said to his friend that she should come straight up. Ready? he asked.

End of excerpt.