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sentence quivered in the air between us like an unmet handshake.

Silently, she knelt in the moss and earth and began to push leaves and sticks from the base of a small fern. I backed away, pulled off the unsullied gloves, went into the house, climbed into bed with Ryan, and replayed the entire failure over and over.

Parents had always liked me. After all, I wasn't a drug addict or deadbeat. I dressed conservatively but stylishly, I told jokes bawdy enough to endear myself to Ryan's father and brother, and I was helpful enough in the kitchen to relieve Kristy of some of the tedious dicing and chopping. I liked her. I thought she felt the same.

Could it be that she heard me tell Ryan I didn't like her living room rug? It was too dark and made the room look smaller, but I'd put the same one in my living room if it hurt her feelings that much.

Deep down I knew it wasn't the rug. I believed that she sensed her shrubbery's panic using her keen perception of the moods and expressions of plants, a language to which I am even less attuned than Helen Keller would be in a live taping of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Yes, Kristy saw their quivering leaves, heard their shrill screams of panic as soon as I pulled on my gloves. I imagined her soothing the trembling young fern at her knees, murmuring, "Okay my sweet fern, it's okay, little man. I'll get rid of her. You're safe, yes you are. Shh shh."

Kristy and I avoided each other's skittish glances for the rest of the day. I wanted to go home to my happy apartment in a stony gasoline-choked plant-hating city. I smiled fondly at the thought and held on to the sweet promise of New York as I slept that night.

The next morning I walked into the kitchen and saw Kristy standing at the window, gazing out at her ferns. I started to back out of the room, but her stance shifted. Not much, just a fraction of alert that said "someone else is here now." I was trapped.

"Morning," I said.
"Good morning," she replied. "It looks like it's going to be clear today."
"Oh?"
"Yes. It'll be warm and clear."
"Nice. Maybe Ryan and I will go for a walk."
"I think I'll make a pie crust."
"Fun."

This conversation gave "shooting the breeze" a whole new meaning: I wanted to shoot myself as the ferns quivered in the breeze. Any conversation, even a confrontation, was better than this elaborate avoidance, what Ryan's dad would call putting lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig, no matter how much you tart it up.

"Kristy, I'm sorry about yesterday," I began. She turned

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