After weeks of no contact I guiltily e-mailed Stephanie and said, you know, sorry, would you like to have a drink? And sure enough she wrote back yeah and then a day later she wrote again, you know what, a drink is not in the cards, so to speak. She said so to speak, as though the cards were a pun. Not in the cards.

The dreary listing of a doomed and idle coupling, sure to run aground but when and how?