The paper I presented was well received. After a celebratory lunch with my collaborators that lasted three hours and left me a bit tipsy on Bavaria’s famous beers, I went for a walk in the Englischer Garten—in the snow.In fact, it snowed the entire time I was in Munich. By contrast, Naples, where I landed Friday afternoon, enjoyed a clear blue sky and bright, lovely sunshine.My fake boyfriend waited for me at the luggage claim, in a gorgeously cut black trench coat worn open over a black suit that probably had Tom Ford’s name on it. He was leaning against a row of seats, his eyes on his phone, and something about his posture was extraordinarily sexy—the relaxed shoulders, the slight slouch, the perfectly angled lines of his legs. I’d seen professional models on thirty-foot-high billboards who couldn’t project half this much easy confidence.Aspirational beauty, I suddenly thought. What he presented to the world was exactly the kind of magnetic stylishness luxury brands tried to associate with their products, the kind that made people anxious to wear the same clothes and sport the same watch, because they couldn’t help wanting to emulate that powerful allure.Because the assumption was that such a powerful allure could represent only the epitome of success and happiness.Except he was a man who couldn’t go home.
