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I was killing time in a drug store outside her apartment. I was twenty minutes early -- I'd buzzed her and she said over the intercom, "you're twenty minutes early," and I stood there for a while until I realized she wasn't going to unlock the door for at least twenty minutes, so I had some time to kill.

So I was killing twenty minutes in a Duane Reade. I was flipping through one of the tabloids, reading the puns. That James Taylor song was playing. "In my mind, I'm gone to Carolina..." I reached the end of the tabloids and started looking for puns in the Wall Street Journal. Kristin called me -- "where are you? You're twenty minutes late." I looked at my watch. I'd been in Duane Reade for forty minutes. I had no idea how I'd lost so much time -- I would have sworn it hadn't been longer than three minutes. I guess I had flipped through a lot of newspapers, though. A motherly-looking woman stood behind the counter with the dead-eyed look of someone who has to stand in one place listening to soft rock all day.

---

On the walk Kristin said we needed to have a "serious talk." It was about her anxiety. She said she got anxiety a lot. I had anxiety too, but she had no respect for mine because I felt it all the time, and so it was not a condition but simply a way of being. She only got her anxiety when she thought about her career or when she was with me. I didn't have much respect for her anxiety, to be frank. It was a weird kind of self-reinforcing anxiety. She believed that her anxiety was a symptom of her intellectualism and deep ambitions. It was the most flattering anxiety I'd ever heard of.

"I was at work today and it overcame me." We stopped in one of those monstrous Barnes & Nobles. She had to buy a gift for her nephew -- something simple, because she believed him to be an idiot.

I decided to wander around. I walked towards the back of the store and the music lapped gently against the shores of my consciousness, or something. "In my mind, I'm gone to Carolina..." I looked over a table of Paperback Favorites and didn't recognize any of them. The radio abruptly clicked off and some 20-something girl's voice came over the intercom. "Customer James Taylor to the first floor courtesy desk," she said. "Customer James Taylor." The music clicked back on. "In my mind, I'm gone to Carolina..."

Kristin was still mad at me when I found her so I paid for her book and we left. She was still mad at me.

We decided to go to some restaurant she knew of. She asked me why I'd wandered off in the store. I said I didn't know. I asked her if she'd heard an announcement over the intercom but she ignored me. We passed a guy shouting into his cellphone. He was wearing a suit and soaking wet. "James," he barked into the phone. Then, with emphasis, "Taylor." A different guy in a different suit (dry) barreled into me shoulder-to-shoulder and almost knocked me over. We both kept walking.

The restaurant was a mostly vegetarian place. The only meat they had was a turkey sandwich. I ordered a turkey sandwich. We noticed the music. Kristin closed her eyes and started swaying back and forth. "I love this song," she said. She started singing along -- "In my mind, I'm gone to Carolina..." I listened harder, trying to hear that guitar part, that din da-din di-din part, but I never heard it. It was either on a loop or the song was longer and more unresolved than I remembered it. Kristin sang along again. "In my mind, I'm gone to Carolina..."

She asked me if I thought she was doing enough. I told her I didn't know what that meant. She said she was worried she wasn't doing enough, and I pointed out to her that I did nothing. She asked me, what did I think "intuition" was. I said, what? The conversation proceeded in this manner for some time.

They'd forgotten the turkey on my turkey sandwich. "In my mind, I'm gone to Carolina..." It was just greens and shredded carrots and chipotle mayo and cheese on some exotic bread, all of it melted together in a wet clump. Kristin said I should send it back, but I didn't.

The song kept looping -- "In my mind, I'm gone to Carolina..." After we'd finished our food, Kristin suddenly perked up. "James Taylor!" she said.

The waitress brought the check. I couldn't read the numbers. I couldn't figure out how much tip to leave. The waitress had written a note on the bottom of the bill -- "Thank you!" then a picture of a heart, then she'd signed it "Carolina." I took four twenties out of my wallet and asked for change. She looked at me funny. Two of the twenties came back, but torn and dirtier than before. There was also a five. Lincoln's face was obscured -- someone had printed GONE over his face in thick black marker. I showed it to Kristin. She didn't say anything.

There was a guitar player outside, taking change in his case. "In my mind, I'm gone to Carolina..." He was young but he sang with James Taylor's voice. Kristin perked up. "James Taylor!" She told me to give him some money but I refused.

We turned the corner and heard a whoosh -- air being displaced. Across the street a man hit the pavement in a belly flop. He landed behind a car -- all we saw of him then was a pink cloud that rose and fell fast. I looked up. A banner hung from a window maybe fifteen floors up -- it said "CAUSE I'VE GONE TO CAROLINA IN MY MIND." I grabbed Kristin's arm and asked her what that banner said -- she pulled me away.

Now she was crying. "Why would someone do that?" she cried. "I hate this city!" But I loved it now. "He closed the circle," I told her. A car came careening down the block -- a beat-up old sports car driven by a black guy with a bandana. The windows were open and he was blasting music. I grabbed Kristin's arm again and pulled her into the street. The car kept flying towards us. "In my mind, I'm gone to Carolina..." The car tore through us, like mom's scissors through wrapping paper.