The door was ajar, so I went in without knocking. Her apartment was right above Sammy’s Pub. It took my eyes a few moments to focus on the scene around me. I was always pleasantly surprised by the coziness of her room, with mahogany curtains loosely framing the windows and the smell of incense wafting through the air. Before I could stop myself, my face was in her pillows, my feet in the air.

“Are you drunk?” she laughed. I groaned. “At least take off your shoes,” she chided. I made a show of kicking them off and pulled at the tie that now felt like a noose. “You smell like a distillery.” She waved her hand in front of her nose.

I groaned again and lifted my face from her bed. She was hovering over her desk, measuring the length and width of an abstract painting. To me, it looked like a bunch of cauliflower in the middle of a field. Her hair was a little disheveled, running down her back like a wave. She glanced up at me, her eyes clouded by a subtle expression I’d never learned to convey myself.

“What are you…doing?” I wondered if my words were English.

“What am I doing? Is that what you said? I’ve got a show tomorrow afternoon, and I need to matte all of these.” She pointed to a stack of paintings of more cauliflower and broccoli and some other truly indistinct vegetables. “Except the damn mattes I’ve already cut are apparently not wide enough for this show…” She opened her mouth slightly and rolled her eyes dramatically. “…so I’ve got to recut them all. Just one of the fun parts of being an artist.” She threw me a wink and let out a breathy sigh.

“Oh yeah. There’s nothing like having to cut new mattes. It’s dreadful, really. What’s world hunger or terrorism or—or orphaned children compared to cutting new mattes? God only knows.” I couldn’t tell if the slurred words were coming out of my mouth or that of some obnoxious third party sitting in the corner of the room.

She looked at me blankly for a few seconds, trying to gauge the levels of sarcasm and seriousness in my words. Without responding, she looked back at her painting. “Why are you drunk on a Tuesday night, Steve? Don’t you have work tomorrow?”

I loosened my tie a bit more and ignored her question. “How was your date with what’s his name? What’s his name again? Tom? Ted?”

“Trey?”

I knew perfectly well what his name was. “That’s it. I knew it was something weird. Yeah. How was your date with him?”

She answered calmly. “It was good. We’ll probably see each other again next week.” She made a few more cuts. “How was your weekend?”

I answered loudly. “My weekend was good. Ate a lot. Drank a lot. Watched a lot of TV. I would have cut a few mattes, but I didn’t want to make the world an uglier place. That would be unforgivable.”

She didn’t look up or make a sound but just kept on cutting. She turned a little from me, and the lamplight revealed shades of cherry in her hair. I hated the sound of her exacto knife on the cardboard.

“You think you’ll go to Martha’s thing this weekend?” I asked.

“No, probably not.”

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. You wouldn’t want anyone to think you’re not one hundred percent dedicated to your work. Your artistry. Your – what is it – post-modernist abstractions.” I knew what I was saying and how I was saying it, but I couldn’t stop myself. “Wouldn’t want anyone to think that it’s only a hobby. That would be unforgivable and humiliating.”

She didn’t stop me, and I knew why. She raised her eyes again to mine and gave me a look mixed of pity and compassion, one that is perfectly crafted for a friend with a drinking problem. “If you want to stay here for the night, you can. I don’t want you driving,” she said. I hated her for saying that. I hobbled off her bed, smoothed my hair, and tightened my tie.

“No, I’ll get a cab. That’s what I was planning to do.” I approached her door. She didn’t look up. “I’m sober enough to hail a cab, you know.”

“Alright,” she said quietly, without looking up.

“Hell, I’m even sober enough to walk home.”

“Alright,” she said again, definitively. She looked up from her work. Her eyes held some emotion I could not recognize. Perhaps there was a bit of hurt in it. “Don’t fall down,” she said, laughing lightly.

“I’m not going to fall down, silly,” I pronounced with as much resonance as possible, and then turned swiftly and walked out, without waiting to see her reaction.