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talk that includes the word “pound.” Gordon is still talking about bulgur when a woman on line behind him recognizes his voice and peers around him to get a better look at his face. Gordon! she says, smiling. I thought that was you.
    Gordon would swear he has never seen this woman before. Gordon often claims he never forgets a face, which is usually true, although once in a rare while he’ll forget a name, but this face and its name are entirely unfamiliar to him. I’m sorry, do we know each other? He figures they must have met at a party, maybe a corporate training event, that she’s someone he knows casually. Gordon may be priggish, but he’s a polite man, and is hoping that they did not date, that would be awkward. But, of course, that’s exactly the deal. The woman introduces herself as Trudy.
    Oh , Gordon says, of course, of course , except it’s not of course . Gordon and Trudy had been in the same graduating class and had dated for the entire nine months of their senior year, and he does not remember her. It’s hard to believe, near impossible to believe, and yet we can see from his face that it’s one hundred percent true. And we can see from Trudy’s face that she’s having trouble believing it, too.
    You’re kidding, right?
    Gordon, rarely at a loss for words, does not know what to say. He is not kidding. He thinks his mouth may even be hanging open, but he’s not altogether sure.
    Senior year? ___ Hall? Pitchers of beer and darts at the Rat? Frisbee on the quad?
    Gordon certainly remembers these things, but not in conjunction with Trudy. She’s an attractive woman, to be sure, he thinks, taking in her large brown eyes, the chestnut waves of hair resting on the tops of her shoulders, her slender waist, delicate ankles atop a pair of heels. She looks like someone he would have dated, without a doubt. But any memory of this woman is utterly unavailable to him in this moment.
    For Valentine’s Day you gave me a pair of red footed pajamas? I gave you a copy of ‘Leaves of Grass’? We went to that little French place and then on the way back it rained and we ducked into that big cement pipe until it stopped? Trudy leaves out the part about how they kissed in the pipe, can’t imagine just the pipe won’t trigger his memory, but it doesn’t. You used to joke that our song was “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?” I lived on the second floor, you used to go down the fire ladder, you fell that one time, I had a roommate named Sheila?
    Sheila, Gordon remembers—curvy, sexy Sheila who was taking a belly-dancing class one semester. Sheila, he spent a lot of time fantasizing about. Belly-dancing Sheila? His face brightens a bit when he says it, which appears to displease Trudy. For a moment, they’re both silent. Okay , she says. Well, then. Take care.
    You, too, Trudy , he says, taking care to enunciate her name precisely, so much so that it’s not only obvious, but weird-sounding. Tru-dee. Truu-deee. He hears this on a loop in his head for a moment, and then wishes he’d invited her to coffee, just to be polite, not as a date, of course, he’s married. Maybe over coffee he’d remember.
    Gordon will spend no small amount of time concerned about not remembering this. Back in his office following this encounter, he scribbles down a list of pre-Jean relationships to try to spark his memory:
     
    • 5th grade kissing game disaster—Debbie Olsop
    • 10th grade girlfriend Tammy Micklin, prom
    • awful blind date w/ ferret lady
    • regrettable personal ad date
    • Ellen, visible thong above skirt, unrequited
     
    But there’s a noticeable and troubling hole between tenth grade and adulthood. He has not, until now, connected the fact of his father’s memory loss with the possibility of his own fate, but now that he has, the corner he’s turned is not one he’ll easily turn back around. He will not talk to his wife about this, because they do not talk about previous (or current) lovers. He will