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In the mid-'90s I lived in Seattle in a 350-square-foot studio apartment on Capitol Hill. I had no furniture except for a bed and a lawn chair I'd found in an alley. I held a variety of terrible jobs, and I worked infrequently. For the first time in my life I was irresponsible with my credit card. My friends and I got high and picked mushrooms off the land in front of the Seattle University campus chapel. They were not exceptionally strong, but three or four would induce an hour-long high followed by a restful sleep.

I slept a lot those days.

I spent my nights in bars and my days in cafés, favoring the Speakeasy, a massive, high-ceilinged internet cafe downtown. One had to dodge the homeless drunks — who at that time dominated downtown Seattle — to make it through the front door, but it was worth it. They had gallery shows and a performance space in back, and a clientele composed mainly of artists and computer geeks. I thought they were all hot, but I never talked to anyone because I felt I had nothing to offer.

This is where I saw him, the man in the suit jacket and the ever-changing array of vintage shirts. He was put together just so, which I admired. Also, he was slightly worn in the face and at least ten years older than everyone else. He always had a book open in front of him, just like me.

He spoke to me first. He told me he liked my book. I was reading Cathedral by Raymond Carver, which was sort of like reading A Confederacy of Dunces in New Orleans, which was sort of like reading Bright Lights, Big City in New York; they were all books that could make someone young feel like the world at that very moment had been invented specifically for them.

"I like it because everyone around here sounds like Carver's characters," I said. "Up north, especially." I had gone thrifting in Everett a few weeks before, and every conversation I heard in the Value Village was clipped and mournful.

We talked about books for a while. His name was Davy, and he used to own a bookstore. Mainly first editions, but they sold records and comic books too. I had graduated from college two years before so I had a fresh enthusiasm about literature.

"It was right down the street," he told me. "Closed six months back. We'll get it going again." He looked down and clenched his hands together. His fingernails were dirty, but not so much I minded it. Just a thin line of dirt under the top of the nail, as if he had traced the shape with a ballpoint pen.

"Everyone said they loved my shop, but no one ever bought a goddamn thing," he said. He was angry, and then he calmed himself. "This city's changing. Look at this place." He waved around. "Everyone's got their head glued to a computer instead of a book."

I hadn't embraced the internet yet, so I was with him on that. Computers were what you used in an office. We spoke for an hour. He seemed relieved to have someone to talk to, and so was I. I missed having a book person in my life. My last boyfriend — the one who was missing the tips of two fingers, a detail that had played out a little oddly during sex — had worked at the university bookstore and was writing a novel he would never show me. He had dumped me for no apparent reason. Dumped by a bookstore clerk — I still sighed about it.