Before I took the last sip of my martini, I said to the beautiful Miranda, “I had an encounter this morning that gave me fresh evidence that—”
    “Most people are idiots,” said the man at the table next to ours.
    Astonished, I glanced sidelong in the direction of the man who had completed my sentence for me. Because he was sitting in the seat corresponding to Miranda’s and his companion was sitting in the seat corresponding to mine, he and I were nearly facing each other. He glanced sidelong at me at the moment when I glanced sidelong at him. Our eyes locked for an instant, then we looked away.
    “Most people begin their careers as idiots at a very young age,” he went on.
    I glanced at Miranda. She raised an eyebrow, and she smiled a little smile that I interpreted as saying, “I’ll bet you’re feeling that chill that people are said to feel when they meet their doppelgängers.”
    I wondered whether my doppelgänger’s companion might be sending him a similar silent communication, but I didn’t care to look at him to see if I could see in his eyes some indication that she was.
    “And they persist in their idiocy throughout their lives,” he said, “resisting all efforts to elevate them above it.”
    Miranda coughed into her napkin in an attempt to hide a laugh, but she didn’t seem to deceive my doppelgänger any more than she deceived me. He glanced at her quizically, as if he couldn’t quite believe that she could have been laughing at him though the evidence of his senses told him that she must have been.
    “Is the sunlight through the window too much for you?” he asked his companion.
    “What?” she said, with a suddenness that made me think she might not have been listening while he developed his perceptive assessment of the prevalence of idiocy. “Oh. The sun? No. It’s fine.”
    “It’s a bit much for me,” he said. He rose, accosted a passing waiter, and arranged for their removal to the opposite side of the room, away from the sun, and me.
    Before they left the table beside ours, he favored me with another glance. In his eyes I saw the shock of recognition and understanding that he must have seen in mine. He had seen what I had seen. He knew who I was. He knew that I knew who he was. He didn’t like me any more than I liked him.
    A silence fell over us while we ate. Miranda broke it. “This chicken is just wonderful,” she said.
    I leaned across the table and whispered, “These might be the best crab cakes I have ever eaten.”
    “Really?” she said.
    “They are certainly among the top five,” I said. “Well, the top ten.”
    She put her hand on mine and said, “Stop there, while I can still be happy for you.”