Small spaces made her feel less alone. In bigger spaces she was too conscious that she didn’t have anything or anyone to fill them with.

She logged simultaneously into her email and onto her favorite social networking site, where she learned that Brett Rosen, whom she hadn’t spoken to since Ms Bellingham’s class twenty-one years earlier, was now single, and someone she’d never met named Ellen Randolph was super-pumped about the $1.99-two-donuts-and-a-coffee deal that Donut World offers e…