“They say stage hypnotists can’t make you do anything that you didn’t already want to do, but if you’d asked me if I wanted to be paraded around, naked, in front of a crowded auditorium I’d have said ‘no’. I guess I was wrong.”

“How long have you been sitting out here?”

“About twenty minutes. But I knew you’d look out of the window and come down sooner or later.”

I was disappointed not to be able to have a party, to not even have friends come around, but at least I was able to invite one friend over.

“Don’t get dressed up,” I said.

She did. I didn’t.