Yesterday, when you said you told everyone, what did you mean?""Everyone important, I guess. I mean, I didn't rush out to inform my mailman or anything.""Oh, he knows," Nate said offhandedly."Oh. Okay," I said, thrown. "Well, I guess I can cross him off the list.

People at work eyed me with varying degrees of suspicion or approbation, and a couple of them mistook me for the kind of guy who knew twelve different ways to tie a scarf and whether that scarf clashed with their purse. My helpful tip that most accessories were just needless expenses met with disappointment.

It was a good picture. You could tell by the amount of time I spent staring at it.

Whether it was the power of suggestion or whether her eyes really hadn't deceived her, I began noticing too that my face was occasionally going rogue the rest of the afternoon, smiling when I had little reason to smile. Maybe my facial nerves were developing a neurological condition; I resolved to keep a close eye on it.