I’d also brought a long-distance relationship with me that was now longer still – Mexico to New Zealand. It was love, true and meteoric and beatific, the kind that should come with a warning label. None of that flat and trivial off-the-rack stuff. And that kind of acute love is painless dedication, but dedication nonetheless, bondage for the heart until forever’s last kiss. We spent hours and hours on Skype, not monthly or weekly, but daily, worshipping each other’s magnetic lips. Made it hard to be in the moment. Of course, being outside the moment felt righter and sweeter, and if there was anything to miss out on, I would have missed out on it by being in the moment. Or so my love-stricken heart thought. And maybe it was right, or maybe spellbound, or maybe it was lazy. Our togetherness apart was a sort of silky solitude, and our polestar never portended an end, let alone in such unlikely proximity.

If I had divined the inferno ahead, maybe I had chosen the moment over the long distance, been in it more, been in those parties more. Those affairs were wild and cute at the same time. These Kiwis seemed to be getting their first whiff of alcohol in college. The drinking age was 18 and harsh fines made sure that supermarkets and bars applied strict scrutiny, or else. They even had signs in the supermarkets, something along the lines of “Take it as a compliment if we ask for your age.” And if you appeared drunk, you couldn’t get into the bars whereas elsewhere big spenders like that would be welcomed like Louis XIV. They would also cut you off at the bar if they thought you had enough, which was never when you thought you had enough. Sarah wasn’t having it that first time, and so she poured herself another beer from the tap when nobody was looking. When the waitress saw her with a full glass in her hand, she was livid. All lies were to no avail. “We don’t pour beer in these glasses,” she replied dry as salt. Then she went into the back to roll the security tape. The beer heist had been blown. When she came back, she threatened to call the police. We preferred to pay for the beer and get going.