Bad things happen to me. When I'm feeling paranoid, I fall back on my Jewish cultural tradition of martyrdom. If I see a sunny sky with one cloud, I expect that cloud to rain on me, and when it does, I don't move somewhere else. I stand there, feeling wet and sorry for myself.

Once in my life I took a stand. I said that if my parents didn't send me to the Culinary Institute instead of Mt. Holyoke, I was going to run away and marry a goy. I got what I wanted, but I haven't heard the end of it yet. If my parents outlive me, it'll be on my gravestone: She could have been someone.

At first, Jake was an unexpected good thing. I liked being with him and having regular sex, and I especially liked that he wasn't afraid to show his feelings. Except for the fact that it could end at any moment, we had a real relationship.

Then it ended. Today. I could keep on letting life happen by being the girl he left behind, the one who gets letters from Vietnam, but I decided against that. He's even more into the martyrdom thing than I am. Breaking up was what he expected. It proved that the world was against him. Since it's hard for two martyrs to compete, I switched to the Jewish guilt shtick. I'll never forgive myself if he gets killed in Vietnam.

These things get cyclical. Imagine a Jewish hamster in an exercise wheel. I've got to get off the wheel and out of this apartment. I'm calling Val.

We met at St. Mark's Place, and he groaned when I suggested going to Finnerty's. "If you want to cheer up, we should go somewhere cheerful."

I kicked a clod of snow. "I like Finnerty's. Maybe I'll see some people I know."

"Fine, I'll deposit you with your friends and make my way to Christopher Street."

"Jake's going to Vietnam, and you're going to trick?"

"Think I could save his life by not tricking? That's how I met Jake. If I hadn't, you never would have had the opportunity to steal him from me."

"No one could steal a lover from you, if you really wanted him-or her. And some good it did me to be with him."

He put his arm around me, his black eyes sad as the chords of a Gypsy lament. Melancholy accented the angles of his cheekbones; sorrow lingered in the corners of his mouth.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart, but take a word of advice from someone who knows the ins and outs of love from both the AC and the DC perspectives. Most of it is melodrama. You didn't love Jake, and I don't need a crystal ball to know you never wanted to end up a Jewish housewife in Cincinnati."

"Bastard."

"If only. You had feelings for him, sure, and you're going to miss him, and you're pissed as hell that he's going to Nam. Have those feelings, but don't let them have you. Life goes on, and new opportunities to break your heart wait in the wings."

"I don't get that many opportunities."

"Only because you don't believe you can. There's Finnerty's."

"I don't want to go in there alone. What if they blame me for Jake's decision?"

"Who needs them, then?"

"The world knows that's your attitude."

"Okay, I'll go in with you this once, but only because you're pretending to be in mourning."

I was astonished when Michael Hutchinson called out my name with what sounded like real enthusiasm. He was sitting with his wife, Rainbow, Mary Kinsella, Eli Cabot, and Alice Pennington.

"See, they're welcoming you. You don't need me," Val said.

I clutched his arm. "Please stay? Just for a little while? I feel uptight. If they don't hate me, they might be feeling sorry for me."

"You have a gift for imagining the worst. All right, a little while."

As we approached the table, Rainbow smiled at me. Her blonde sleekness labeled her a woman whom a short, dumpy Jewish brunette should dislike, but she makes that impossible by being a genuinely nice person.

"This is my friend, Valentin Ferenczy," I said.

Rainbow looked curious. "That name is familiar."

I could practically hear Val turn on the charm switch. It goes on automatically whenever he's around someone whom he finds attractive, and you'd have to be not breathing if you didn't see Rainbow as that kind of someone.

"I think we've met," Val said. "At the Alternative Schools conference a few months ago. Don't you teach in a public high school? I teach at a free school in the Village, and you said you'd like to move upstate and start one."

"Right. I was so sorry I didn't get your phone number. We're all talking about starting a commune at this very moment. Would you like to hear about it?"

His caution turned off the charm switch. "Maybe. I'll get a beer."

Michael pointed to a pitcher of ale sitting in front of Mary. "Help yourself."

Mary is no sparkling, perfect blonde, but her long black hair veils cheekbones most women would kill or suffer plastic surgery for, and her eyes are the electric blue you can see a mile away. Everything about her sizzles, and Val responded with a high-voltage smile.

Mary smiled back, but she turned off the lights. She once confessed to me that she's tired of getting hit on all the time. I tried to be sympathetic, but I'd like the chance to be annoyed by male interest.

Val got the "No Vacancy" message and sat next to Rainbow. I sat next to Alice, who's a Quaker and the only person I knew who actually practices the religion of her childhood, except for some of the radical Catholics.

I've been thinking about religion for a while. I like the Quaker idea that you don't need any intermediaries between yourself and God, but whenever I think about actively investigating the Friends, six million Jewish dead accuse me of betrayal. Alice is happy to answer my questions without ever pressuring me to come to Meeting.

Michael smiled at me. "What about you? Have you ever thought about living in a commune? Or are you happy where you are?"

My first reaction was relief that he didn't say, "Now that you don't have a boyfriend, you might realize you need people around you." He didn't have to. That's Michael's genius. He finds ways that line up people's best interests with his own by making them think.

I started thinking hard. Career-wise, I'm going nowhere. The Mustard Seed's manager is too cautious to let me experiment with new dishes, and recipes seethe inside me like a bad case of heartburn.

He says the dishes I have in mind take too long to prepare. New Yorkers are always in a hurry. If their meal isn't set before them five minutes after they ordered it, they harass the waiters and him. Might as well call the place Carrots on the Run.

Happy? This morning, too depressed to get out of bed, I watched a cockroach skitter down the wall. My own life looked just as meaningless as a journey over bumps and brush marks and cracks, except that the cockroach probably thought it was actually doing something.

Do you want to go to a demo, do you want to fuck, do you want to live together in a commune? I'm not even sure what a commune is, and the whole idea terrifies me, but I'm so amazed that Michael asked me. He likes me, and no one else said, "I wouldn't share a bathroom with her if you paid me."

In fact, Alice smiled and squeezed my hand. "I hope you will," she said.

Mary smiled, too. "I haven't made up my mind for sure, but I love the idea of you being part of it."

Even Eli, who looked awfully depressed, cheered up momentarily.

Maybe it's a little like going to bed with someone because he pays attention to you, but I could do this thing just because they're welcoming.

If I want it to work, though, I'll have to start believing that good things can happen to me, and what could be more dangerous than that?

I love the idea of Amethyst joining us, but I didn't get immediate clear vibes about Val. No point in complaining about Rainbow's impulsive invitation-if it really was impulsive, if she didn't already know this guy and have a thing for him. What if they'd had a quickie at the Alternative Schools Conference? Who could blame Rainbow for wanting to have a secondary squeeze on hand in the event of my inevitable betrayal?

And Val is such an attractive candidate. The lazy way he slouched in his chair oozed sensuality and let anyone who knew how to measure that he was one of the better-hung stallions in the corral. As if equipment weren't enough, he also had thick black hair, dark skin, and glittering onyx eyes. You could picture him in a red shirt with billowing sleeves, a dagger stuck in his trousers, stealing a horse or something. Looking at his tall leanness made me feel every inch of the beer belly that was no longer incipient.

Rainbow should have consulted me before inviting him to join us, but if I said that, she'd just slam her hands against her slim hips, and say, "Okay, Mr. Spontaneity. How come you can invite half the East Village?"

She'd be right. I have a mind that can't stay still long enough to think things out, and that's no accident because my parents, recipients of fortunes so old they're gathering dust, give the phrase, "the idle rich," new meaning. Dad goes to his clubs and drinks; Mom has lunches with her friends that last until dinnertime and are mostly liquid. Like a good son, I developed my own routine by going to the shooting galleries to get high.

After going cold turkey, an experience I don't recommend, I realized I'd have to stay busy in order to stay clean. Now I avoid routines; I get high on chance and uncertainty. I listen to my intuition.

It gave me mixed reviews about Val. He was trouble, but the more I studied him, the more I began to see that he was my kind of guy.

He had that big-cat predatory look, his eyes slitted as he listened to the others. He seemed to be waiting for the best moment to pounce. I noticed the barely-visible scar on his forehead and his single earring. There was something streetwise about Val, the aura of a hustler. Drugs? Sex? He had the wary eyes of a man who'd trained himself to look around for both trouble and opportunity.

I have radar for guys like him. Two years since I last shot up, I remind myself, two years since I left the world of pushers and hustlers and users. Thank God or whoever, my life isn't perfect, but that's over.

Val suddenly smiled, his hair falling into his face like a colt's forelock, his eyes glowing, a tender, wistful curve to his mouth that made me suddenly like him.

"It could be a wonderful thing, this commune," he said, "an adventure." He turned to me. "If I feel I can make a real contribution, I'd be open to talking about it."

Probably his outlaw days, too, are in the past. It might be cool to have another former renegade in the commune. I'm tired of being the only one in the average hippie grouping.

I think it's going to happen. The commune idea is gathering momentum. I'm at the top of the rollercoaster, and there's no way to get off. I don't know whether to laugh or scream.