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Nothing happens, not for a month. It's February, a time of icy inertia. Outside the apartment, I have two dates, setups from before Christmas. Nice men, but I am distracted, even agitated, during these evenings, and nothing clicks.

One morning in March, I shake myself a bit and clear the boxes and such out from under my bed. That evening, with my daughter's help, I move things in and out of my bedroom. We bring side tables in to flank the bed, and another lamp, and a little painting of two peaches (pairs, get it?). We hang photographs in pairs, and artwork by my daughter. "Gosh, Mom," she says. "It finally looks like someone lives here."

The next day, I buy a seven-foot-tall ficus tree, in an enormous earthenware pot, for hundreds of dollars. (I email Reiko later, to tell her that I now can't afford to buy a rug or cover my windows. She seems happy I've taken care of the poison arrow.) The elderly West Indian man at the plant store is unconvinced of my suitability as a plant steward.

"Ficus are very hard to take care of," he keeps saying, shaking his head. "They want lots of light, lots of humidity. Not good in a New York apartment."Well, why, I want to ask, do you sell them, then? Instead, I promise I will water weekly and mist constantly. I can see he doesn't believe me.

At home that night, the ficus throws shadows like birds on my walls. In the morning, I wake up and think I'm in the Islands.

Reiko has suggested a mirror in my living room, where I work, and a bigger desk. "The mirror suggests possibilities," she explains, "and extends space. A desk's size has the same effect on your work as a goldfish bowl has on a goldfish: The goldfish will grow in proportion to the bowl." I find a crumbling gilt mirror upstate, paint it white, and hang it over my desk. The desk I keep. I think my work goldfish is big enough.

That weekend, a friend meets someone at a party who knows a single guy and—how random is this?—my friend and this someone exchange my and this single man's email addresses. A few days later, a flurry of emails from the stranger arrives: tiny semaphore greetings that are nonetheless literate, funny, and charming. I meet their author for coffee. More emails follow. "I'll call you tomorrow," reads one, rather portentously. I think, "Well, that's nice," but I never hear from the guy after that.

A divorced friend, blissful in a new relationship, suggests I look in another state. (Her bedroom would make Reiko beam, as it's an interior room in a loft—carpeted, windowless, and full of pairs of things: little tables, lamps, and photographs.) "There are too many women in New York," my friend says. "The ratios are not in your favor." She is not helping the situation, either, as she has just fixed up her children's 25-year-old babysitter with one of her own discards.