It’s not as though she hasn’t known the risk of photos—hasn’t known that photographs of herself get beautified by the music just as effectively as her physical self does, and that when the music stops, her beauty on paper fades just as quickly as it does in the flesh. She knew she could never let Strad have a photo of herself because as soon as he took it home with him, away from the music, it would no longer look like the woman he loves but like his ugly ex-colleague. She has guarded against this risk by hiding all photos of herself and forbidding Strad to snap any new ones, ever. But it hasn’t occurred to her that one day, on his own, he might stumble upon a photo of her in an old magazine, and that this might happen while the music was playing. That day is today. That time is now.

Strad tries one more time to remove what he thinks must surely be a photo of his girlfriend Sondra stuck on top of Lily’s photo, because he saw the original photo on this very page before packing the magazine in his suitcase and it was unmistakably a photo of Lily. “I don’t get it. Am I dreaming?” he asks.

“In a sense, you are,” she answers.

They stare at each other wordlessly for a long while. Finally, he says, “I don’t want this to be a dream.”

“It was the only way possible.”

He slowly turns his gaze to the music player, and she can see in his face that he finally understands. He reaches for it. He’s about to stop the music, but she says, “No, please don’t. Not like this.”

And so he doesn’t. Instead, he gets up and says, “I need to be alone for now.”

“I understand.”

He goes to the door.

“Strad,” she says.

He turns to her.

“Don’t take the magazine.” She knows that if he does, he will gawk at the hideous photo as it emerges in the silence outside her door.

Guessing her fears, he says, “I’ve seen Lily before, you know.”

“I know. But never through the eyes of her lover.”

He places the magazine on the bed and leaves.

AN HOUR LATER, she knocks on Strad’s door. No answer. She calls the front desk, asks if he’s checked out. He hasn’t. She goes looking for him. She finally sees him, alone, in the business center, gazing at a photo of her—as Lily, not Sondra—on the Internet. And while he’s staring at the screen, he’s humming her music. She’s tempted to tell him it’s nearly impossible to activate the illusion by merely humming the melody. But she steps away from the door without saying anything and without having been seen.

She goes back to her room, buys a plane ticket so she can depart the next day for New York, packs, checks out, and takes a taxi to spend the night at a different hotel.

That night, she goes on the pontoon boat to the biobay. She swims in the luminescent water, looking down at the shine of her movements. She floats on her back, sinking her ears under the surface so that people’s shrieks of joy are silenced. Tears run down her temples and disperse in the liquid light as she stares at the black sky. She lifts one arm out of the water and admires the glitter sliding down her skin.

Even after she leaves the bay, she will try to continue bathing in the beauty of existence. She will let the universe embrace her, since no man will.

ON THE PLANE back to New York, Lily tells herself that if Strad e-mails her or leaves her messages, perhaps she won’t return them. Perhaps it’s for the best. Their relationship might have worked out for a while, but now that he knows, how can it?

THERE ARE NO e-mails or messages when she lands. Nor are there any later that evening.

She calls me and we talk about her trip.

Worried about her, I suggest we get together. Lily says she’s tired and will visit me tomorrow evening instead.

WHEN LILY ENTERS my apartment the following evening, I scrutinize her. In addition to her customary ugliness, there are lines of stress on her face, and an expression of resignation that amplifies the overall sorry effect.

The first thing she says to me is, “Strad doesn’t care.”

“What do you mean?”

“He hasn’t called.”

“It’s only been two days. And plus, you left suddenly. Maybe he’s afraid you might not want to talk to him after the way he reacted. Maybe he thinks he has a better chance of explaining himself in person.”

“He’s made no attempt to see me in person either.”

“Maybe he needs time to think about things, figure out what he’ll say, especially if he happens to want to continue the relationship. It’s possible,” I tell her.

“Why are you trying to get my hopes up? You usually do the opposite.”

“It’s for your own good when I do the opposite. To manage your expectations.”

“And you no longer care about my expectations?”

“Yes I do.”

“So why are you doing this?”

I answer by looking past her, into my living room. She follows my gaze, which brings her to the large swivel easy chair with its back to us.

Slowly, it turns.

And Strad is revealed.

In Lily’s ear, I whisper apologetically, “He persuaded me to let him do this.”

I tell them I’m going out for an extended errand. And I leave.

What happens then, I’m told later:

Strad gets up and walks over to Lily. She has an urge to hide her face, but she remains motionless.

Without saying a word, he gently kisses her lips. And then he kisses her more passionately. He envelops her and buries his face in her hair.

“Isn’t this great?” he whispers. “We can go to my place and listen to some of my music, for a change.”

She laughs, crying a little.

He gives her another long kiss and takes her hand and pulls her out of the apartment. They fly out of the building.

AT LEAST THAT’S how Lily describes the scene when she calls me the next morning. She says last night was the happiest of her life. “And to think that just the night before, I was so depressed I almost died.”

I grunt sympathetically until I realize she’s not just using an expression. “You almost died?” I ask.

“Yeah. I was playing at my piano, feeling devastated, and my hands started turning reflective again. Clearly it’s the depression that triggers it. It hadn’t happened in a long time, many weeks. The reflectiveness spread up my arms. I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t have the will. And when it got past my shoulders and started spreading onto my chest, I could feel I was dying. And part of me just wanted to let go, let it take me, and be released from the burden of living. I can’t tell you how difficult it was to muster the will to stop the process. I managed it this time, but barely. If it ever happens again, I’m not sure I’ll be able to stop it. Hopefully, I’ll never be that unhappy again.”

THE NEXT DAY, I’m finally ready to return Peter’s calls. I’m still just as disillusioned by his secret and by the fact that he’s not a valid exception, or if he is, there’s no way to be certain of it now.

But in early afternoon I gather my courage and dial his number.

He picks up. I ask him if we can see each other, to talk.

He comes over an hour later.

We sit at my dining table, nothing to drink before us. Neither of us wants anything.

I begin with, “I can never bypass my rule.”

“I know. You told me,” he says.

“But I miss you. And I was wondering if we could be friends. Just friends. But good friends.”

“It won’t be easy for me.”

“I’m not sure I believe you. And actually, there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you.”

“What?”

“Why did you torture me?”

“When, specifically?”

“All the time. Like when you came over with your piece of red velvet.”

“Yeah.”

“And when you kept canceling or postponing our appointments.”