“Just let it out,” she whispered.

“You call taxi?”  A harsh male voice, with a Russian accent, collided into her tenderness; a miserable slob, driving a Beverly Hills Cab, pulled up in front of them.

“Me,” he said to the Russian, feeling like he’d just emerged from anesthesia.   “I called.”  Evan ran his fingers through his hair, which was brown and full of untamed waves, suggesting an equally restless mind.

“Are you okay?” she said.

Evan rose from the bench, clearing his throat of tears.  “This is...it’s not something I do everyday.”

“You don’t lose a best friend everyday,” she said, looking up at him with those smart eyes; and he could see they were wet with empathy.  He figured she was thirty-six, thirty-seven maybe; maybe older, probably older.  Evan was forty-four.

“You’re very sweet,” he said.  “Both of you.”  He kissed the dog’s head, picked up his cello and got into the cab.

If you need to talk,” she said.  “I’m in room 144.”

As the Russian pulled away from the curb, Evan leaned out the window and heard himself say, “I’m in 219.”

It was later, at the recording studio, while playing cello for a rapper who was awaiting trial for murder––and who was boasting “cellos and oboes and shit” would show the world he was “sensitive as that died-deaf-motherfucker-Beethoven”––that Evan realized two things: He didn’t know her name; and he couldn’t wait to call her.