The way she tells it, I put my hands in the salad.

The way she tells it, this gets a big laugh from a library full of people.

The way she tells it, my charms aren’t enough to overcome this fatal flaw that is revealed at a diner outside of Bryce Canyon that we had stopped in for dinner.

Her crowd agrees. I am a Neanderthal.

My later sin — not telling her that I have dated an old friend of hers that she introduced me to when helping me find an apartment in NY — helps them find the self-righteous harrumpf of disapproval.

I am heartless and selfish too.

They don’t hear about the cold loveless summer in San Francisco that came after. Or the refusal to work on the frozen moments that came unexplainably in the dark. Or the love that was offered to dumb tears and a closed mouth. Gagged pain I so deeply wanted to relieve.

They just see the polished surface, the white white teeth of a lemon shaped smile.

And that’s all I see in the small YouTube window where she is frozen in the way she tells it.