Another perfect November day in Koreatown. 60 degrees of bright crisp sunshine and I’m sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk, my tools spread around me, the Explorer jacked up to expose its right rear hub. I’m fixing the recent shriek I hear every time I step on the brake — a loose adjuster responsible for yanking the graphite shoes tight against the drum. I could’ve waited and had it fixed in Tijuana, where auto repair is dirt cheap. But that’s still more expensive than doing it myself.

The key is in the ignition and the windows are down so I can hear the immigration reform debate on California Public Radio. My cellphone is within easy grasp, since Hercules keeps calling every couple minutes to complain about the outrageous things that white people say. You’d think an aging Sixties radical like him would be used to it by now. I lubricate the brake mechanism with lithium grease from a 15-year-old can, my fingers slimy with the pale goop, hoping he doesn’t ring me right now.

My cellphone buzzes. I groan and wipe my hands on my jeans and fumble the clamshell open. “Yeah?”

“Hey stranger.” Phoebe’s voice is almost lost in gangster rhymes and bone-jarring beats.

“Where the hell are you, Compton?”

Abruptly the background goes mute. “Sorry. I was watching rap videos while I pack for Hong Kong. Are you in your apartment?”

“Nah, I’m down on the sidewalk fixing my truck. What’s up?”

“You know that little jade statue I gave you? I need you to check and see who the maker is. The name should be carved right on the bottom. I want to buy another one when I’m over there.”

The little jade statue. A small carving of a Buddhist temple guardian, scowling with emerald fierceness. Phoebe surprised me with it after one of her trips to China, back when I was taking a heavy courseload of East Asian Studies classes. Proof that we verged on something more than fuckbuddies. Of course, she hasn’t given me a gift since, and I parked the statue on top of my bookshelf and forgot all about it. Until now.

“You can have it back, if you want.” The words come out sounding cruel, although I don’t mean them that way.

“God, Nick. You’re such an asshole sometimes.” Even wounded, Phoebe can’t summon much emotion. “Just text me whatever’s carved on the bottom, alright?”

“You know what I miss about us?”

“The sex?”

“This. I miss this. Just talking.”

“You miss the sex,” she laughs emptily. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but honestly? I don’t miss you that much. And when I do miss you, there’s always my vibrator.”

“Things. That’s all I have left of you. Just a bunch of leftover things.” It’s a useless truth. Phoebe is dwindling into artifacts — that jade statue guarding the dusty heights of my bookshelf, the speed-dial number I never use anymore, a half-empty box of her favorite ribbed condoms past their expiration date.

“But not my macrame beach bag, right? You better not have that lying around.”

“Nah. I never found it.”

In the background I hear footsteps and the tinkle of liquid, maybe water, maybe urine. “We were together a long time. I kinda expected something different when we broke up. Some drama, you know? But this conversation is really lame.”

My other line beeps. I tell Phoebe to hang on and click over in irritation. “What now?”

This time it isn’t Hercules assaulting my eardrum with reverse racism. Instead I’m listening to a girl. A shy, familiar girl. “Nick? Are you there?”

“Nooshin?”

“Yaayyy, it worked! I finally figured out how to use this stupid calling card thingy.”

Any enthusiasm I’m feeling is choked into monotone. “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you again.”

“I know. But, well… This is okay, right? Nick? I didn’t mean to…” Her voice is getting smaller by the syllable.

Silence on my end. The silence of a busy street in LA. The silence of traffic idling, passersby chatting in Spanish, a passenger jet thundering overhead.

“Shit,” Nooshin finally sighs.

It’s the first time I’ve heard her curse. Something about the swear word erodes my wariness. Finally a spontaneous unguarded moment, the kind of intimacy she always kept from me. Or maybe it’s the brave dejection in her voice — realizing she royally screwed up, mourning a connection, moving on. All in a single word.

“Can you hang on?” I relent. “I’ve got Phoebe on the other line. Let me get rid of her.”

“No, I can’t hang on. I’ve only got, like, 19 minutes left on this calling card.”

“Fine, I’ll call you back. What’s the number?”

“Um, I’m not sure. Can’t you see it on your display?”

I briefly hold the cellphone in front of my face. “It’s saying unassigned, whatever that means. Where are you calling from?”

“I’m at a payphone at this flea market, but I don’t see a number.”

“A public payphone? There has to be a number displayed right on the phone. It’s federal law.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Really.” I listen to her frustrated murmurings until my patience runs out. “I’ve got a better idea — just call me back in five minutes, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Promise? No standing me up and sending a blow-off email later.”

“Promise!” says Nooshin happily, and hangs up.

I click back to static. Phoebe is gone. As if she was ever here to begin with. We’ve been passing through each other in slow motion. Four years of slow motion. I used to think our trajectories were carrying us apart — me into academia, her into Corporate America — but now I know better. We had something in common for a while, a convenient loneliness, and now we don’t. She’s planning to buy a little jade statue for the new distraction in her life, a guy who will soon take the place of her vibrator. I’m stumbling into a friendship with a married chick who makes talking fun again. And that’s all it takes, how it ends. Just like she said. Lame.

I set the cellphone aside and dip my fingers into the lithium grease and attack the brake assembly again, waiting for Nooshin — or just Hercules — to call me back.