23
Judith’s office was cold and dry. Ava sat in an embracing armchair and looked out the enormous panel of windows, where a gray blanket of clouds met the jagged, navy Buttermilk Channel. It was the Monday after the Steinway tour, after a weekend lying in bed with Mat, streaming movies and eating leftover sushi. They had watched a movie called 7,000 in which a man sent his kindergarten sweetheart a love letter every day, hoping that someday they would be together despite living on opposite coasts and knowing nothing about each other’s lives. But the woman’s mail carrier was in love with her and intercepted all seven thousand letters. They were both riveted by the film, by its obvious narrative flaws, by the lusty mail carrier, who was played by a grotesquely muscled man with a p**n-star l
