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And now he and Kate are moving. Jack doesn’t even know where to. And Jack shows up at their apartment and sees Eric’s old-model Volvo parked out front, already loaded up. And there are boxes in the hallway on the second floor, and Jack knocks on the open door, and Kate is sitting on the couch, sobbing. And Jack asks, “What’s wrong? Aren’t you guys ready?” and Eric is standing there, folding his hand into his beard. And he’s shaking his head. And he says, “She didn’t know.”
    â€œShe didn’t know what?”
    â€œThat I was moving out.”
    â€œYou’re moving out?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œI thought you were both moving.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWait a minute. You just told her?”
    And Eric nods, still with his hand in his beard. And Kate is still crying and then she stands and says, “Get out of here, you stupid assholes,” and then they do.
    â€œThis is what happens when love goes wrong,” Eric says, carrying out a cardboard box of pornographic magazines into the hallway.
    And that’s all he says about that.
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AND A WEEK LATER.
    And then it’s Saturday night and Birdie calls and asks him if he wants to go to a party with her and he says okay, and she says it’s an Imaginary Building party, but he does not have a costume, but that’s okay too. Everyone is supposed to take a cardboard box and make a building out of it to wear but he can’t find any cardboard boxes except for the ones in the alley behind his apartment and they are all covered in snow, and so he has his gray winter coat on and he has decided to wear his banana shirt, and the banana is chasing a donut, and it’s a shirt he made four years ago in a silk screening class in art school and isn’t all that funny anymore. And Birdie is dressed as the Eiffel Tower and she looks pretty great and both of them are riding their bikes to the party. And at a stoplight, she turns to him and says, “I don’t know if we can be friends anymore.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI told Gus what happened. He’s pretty pissed. He doesn’t want us hanging out anymore, alone, together, whatever.”
    â€œBut why did you invite me to go to this party with you?” he asks.
    â€œI don’t know. Because. Because I like hanging out with you. And Gus isn’t here. It’s too hard going everywhere alone.”
    â€œSo do you want to stop hanging out?”
    â€œNo. But I probably should. I mean, maybe if you got a girlfriend. If you were dating someone, then all of us could hang out. It’s just weird right now because you’re not dating anyone.”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œYou can still come to this party with me tonight. Parties are okay. I mean, anything with a lot of people.”
    â€œLike a parade.”
    â€œExactly.”
    â€œOr a funeral.”
    â€œA funeral would be great.”
    â€œGreat,” Jack says, wishing he had stayed home. But it’s Saturday night and he wants to be out, he wants to be out among the people.
    And then he is at the party and Birdie walks away to say hi to someone, and someone else he doesn’t know is standing on the sofa, dancing, dressed as an imaginary building, and other people are talking to each other in pairs and groups of three and four and someone has spilled their drink on the façade of their friend and everyone asks where Jack’s costume is, and someone is dressed as the Chrysler Building and someone else is dressed as the Eiffel Tower and from across the small apartment Birdie rolls her eyes and the music is loud and it’s a band Jack has never heard before and he has to hold one finger in his left ear to talk to anybody and he finds a guy he knows named Pat who’s dressed as the Brooklyn Bridge and who points in the direction of the tiny, white-tiled kitchen, and Jack makes his way through the improvised city