Summary

In Chapter 1, the narrator, Victor, is at a bar, Donnelly’s, worrying about looking lonely. He used to go to bars with his wife, Rachel, but they are no longer together. He has started going to the same bar every night in the same town where he grew up. He has recently moved into a new apartment that reminds him of his primary school, a fact that he does not find to be “an unpleasant sensation” (4). He thinks that his new neighbors might be prostitutes.

At the bar, Victor unexpectedly meets an old friend from school, but Victor does not remember him and cannot recall his name. Victor takes an immediate dislike to him. The old schoolmate suggests that Victor has done well for himself professionally and personally because he “married that bird” (10). He reminds Victor that he had a crush on the...