When he thinks of Rita, he pictures her as she was then, though he knows that can’t be right still. Sometimes, if he sees an attractive older woman in the street or grocery, he’ll imagine that that is how Rita looks today, though the women are never as old as she would be now. He has no idea where Rita is. She might have come back to L.A. too, if things have gone badly for her. She was fond of L.A., despite everything. She could be dead for all he knows. Even if she has come back, they are unlikely to chance on each other. He once tried to calculate just how unlikely, but there were too many imponderables. For all he knows she is living around the corner. He is not sure he would recognize her if they crossed in the street. He would if he looked at her closely, but if she were just driving by in a car or sitting a few tables over in a restaurant, he might not look closely. Why would he look closely? She would drive on past or get up and walk out of the restaurant. He would never know they had brushed past each other. He feels sick when he thinks of that. He is not sure anymore about the picture he carries in his mind. It is not really a picture anymore, just an idea and a name. He wishes he had kept a photograph of Rita. He is not sure what shade of brown her eyes were. For all he knows she was standing behind him at the checkout last night. She might not have recognized him from the back. She wouldn’t have expected him to have put on so much weight. On the other hand, maybe she noticed that a guy in front of her was buying Heinekens. Maybe she remembered that he always drank Heinekens. Maybe she looked closely then. Maybe she knew all along that it was him in front of her, and still she didn’t say anything, because the pain is alive for her too. Sometimes he thinks the pain will never stop until he finds her. If he could talk to her just one more time, if they could sit down together and really talk for once, then maybe he would find out they have nothing in common anymore. He has thought about putting an ad in the newspaper or hiring a detective to look for her, just to find out if she is still alive. He sometimes has a weird kind of daydream. He is in line at the checkout. He turns around and she is standing there just as she used to be, as if there were no such thing as time.