It’s late August; the temperature has topped 100 degrees every day of the week. Oliver looks across the balcony at Mr. Littlejeans, a snow-pawed runt of a cat that walked into his Easy-Bake Living Room three days ago as he and his roommate were eating cold cut sandwiches. His cell phone’s in his Levis, revving and chirping. “Who is it, Littlejeans?,” he says to the cat as if speaking to a moron, “you think it’s Sylvie outside with that tuna she promised to bring over? Who’d’you think it is?” He flips open the phone and sees ‘GREEN, SYLVIE’ in nine-pixel-high letters on the LCD display. “Guess who it is, Littlejeans, guess who’s calling from outside,” he says while scratching the black fur between the cat’s ears.

He leaves the bottle of Polish Spring mineral water and a smoldering Dunhill on the card table when he gets up to meet Sylvie at the front door. They chat in the kitchen as he hunt for a can opener, then they come out to the balcony—she hasn’t met the cat yet and she wants to deliver his tuna fish Personally.