Tano asks me if I'm excited to be here, at his apartment with him, because this is what it will be like every night when I move in. I can tell he's going to kiss me.

"Yes," I say as I head off to the bathroom.

I would write a list but Tano won't let me use any of his paper. He says I should bring my own when I go to his house. I can't wait until I move in and he wants to use my computer. When I move in my ten reasons will become ten billion.

Tano reads his mail for twenty minutes like he's on the committee to select the next president of the United States by mail.

On my list or reasons why moving in with him will be terrible, reason number six-million-and-seventy-three will be that he won't let his kids get bar-mitzvahed, and I know I shouldn't think of kids when I can't even imagine getting a job, but I don't want to be one of those forty-six year-old parents who all of the sudden realizes she wants religion and then it's a crisis. So I'm making it a crisis right now. I tell Tano he is cutting me off from my culture and he said he's sorry, he wants me to be happy, maybe we shouldn't move in together.

But of course we have to move in together because I need to save money. I need to save money so I can leave him and be able to afford to recreate the garden I'm about to give up.