The story begins as Caroline, Aaron Shapiro's live-in girlfriend of six years, is leaving him for another man (identified only as “Jim”). She leaves him with both a broken heart and her cat, ironically named Lady Chatterley (“Jim, evidently, was allergic”). As she walks out the door, she tells Aaron, “I'll always care about you, you know.”

In the next scene, Aaron wakes up in a shabby hotel somewhere in Latin America, and as he reminisces about his relationship with Caroline, the reader learns that Aaron is a concert pianist who was once hailed as a star on the rise, but lately he has been forced to make ends meet by giving piano lessons to “startlingly untalented children.” Shapiro's growing depression over his failing career (and the related financial difficulties) gradually eroded his relationship with Caroline, whose privileged background made it difficult for her to...