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future. While I ate, spooning the cubes of whitish meat from the plastic tray into my mouth, I made a mental list of things that would elicit those expressions. I checked my phone for messages and found that there were none. I watched a television program about the recent, rapid growth of deserts all over the world, an unexplained phenomenon. For some reason the sand is creeping into places where it’s never been before. It isn’t following the normal patterns of soil erosion previously documented by geographers. Instead, it’s gulping down whole towns in single afternoons, as though it were a ravening animal. A man talked to the camera about how he saw a schoolhouse in his village eaten by a wave of sand. The ground opened like the jaws of a snake, he said. And then the school was gone.
    I switched off the television. I went to bed. I tried to smile into the dark but I kept thinking about the ground opening up and swallowing the building where I lived, so I found it difficult.
    The next morning on my way to work I practiced my new repertoire of smiles. I felt pleased, like I had been given a second chance against the odds. But when I arrived at my office, on my desk I found a note that had not been there when I left. I picked it up and read it. It was from Gladys Kemp.
    It said: I know that this is not really usually done at work, but I wanted to thank you again for understanding about my situation and I wondered if you would like to maybe sometime meet up for a cup of coffee or something like that . . . anyway: here’s my phone number. And there was her number, seven lovely digits in a row, and I looked at them and felt the expression on my face turn serious. I felt a kind of nervous anticipation, a fluttering inside my chest. It was not a bad feeling but it made it difficult for me to maintain the sense of placid optimism that I had been carefully cultivating since I woke. I put the piece of paper face down on my desk and looked at it. I wanted very much to call the number, but immediately I thought about what might happen if I did. What if we went out for coffee and it turned out that I bored her or we did not have that much in common? What if we dated for a while and then things did not work out and we had to see each other at work every day and now it was not a happy sight but a painful one? What if we went out and fell deeply in love and I began to feel her feelings along with her, which is what should happen when you love someone very much, and I began to worry about her daughter’s illness and her lack of opportunity and even her lost cat? Any of these outcomes would wreck my Smile Report. And what about Gladys Kemp? She was already struggling to keep her face under control. How on earth would she cope with any more disruptions in her life?
    I swallowed hard and tried to think of calm, benign things like flowers and nice, melodic music, and with some concentration I was able to neutralize the breach in my demeanor. I stood struggling mightily and it occurred to me that if this woman had such an adverse effect on me simply by giving me her phone number, what would happen if I actually called her number and took her up on the offer to meet for coffee? It could have far-reaching negative repercussions for my entire career.
    No, I thought, I can’t allow that. I picked up the piece of paper and bravely, with purpose, barely thinking at all about amber or light or melancholy or lopsided smiles or dark, smooth hair swept back or legs crossed or lavender or green tea, I dropped the note into the trash beneath my desk. I watched it fall among the other papers. I watched it settle. There. I had made a sound and sensible decision, one I could feel positive about. I could feel proud of myself for doing the right thing. I felt the smile return to my face and settle there, roost there, like it had come home.
    Now I was ready to get to work.

On Friendship
    PHONE CALLS
    The reason we are no longer friends is