The weeks immediately following Kate Krupnik's 36th birthday found her preoccupied with unifying themes. It was the onset of fall—as good a time as any—to throw away scraps of paper, outdated outfits, and to mail in rebates and appliance registrations. This was her gift to the cosmos, she decided. She would be better this year, she would not just say she would be better. She would actually be better. This enterprise involved, among other things, finding a signature fragrance and a suite of supporting products to signify her commitment to the scent. She settled on a coffee brew and grind that was the most agreeable to her palate—something nutty and chocolatey. She would no longer be swayed by these nouveau blends that promised so much in the way of smooth, nuanced sensuality (namely a better life) but delivered something vaguely acrid instead. Oh, she was tired of all that.
The first step is always to take each thing on its own terms. Then you had to figure out your terms. Or was it the other way around? In any case, each party had to come to the table with its non-negotiables already decided. No, you did not want to try to figure that out on the back end. Kate Krupnik would approach every new situation by asking herself "What are the facts as I understand them in this scenario?"
It would likely be tiresome.
But whenever she failed to ask that apparently pedestrian, unimaginative question there was always a nasty consequence. That had been the problem. In the past she'd been just focused enough on the semblance of order, of ducks in rows, that when her attention wandered at the last moment it felt like even more of a tragedy. Really, only occasionally had there been a payoff for her deviations. Not consistently enough to justify making it a way of life. And no wonder. Is it really a deviation to be unfaithful to your coffee brand? On her less moored days, she couldn't be sure.
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