The Brand Ambassador stares into the toilet bowl—the familiar third-stall-from-the-right toilet bowl. Her knees throb mercilessly on the cold tile. Body trembling, she counts down from ten. Then in one deft, practiced motion, she presses her index finger to the back of her throat.

Venus loomed overhead, a seething red eye, on the night my father placed the call. Ceremoniously, he dialed the eleven toll-free digits, snickering to himself. He navigated the world like a thermonuclear weapon.

Just as the conventionally attractive couple locks eyes, igniting a passion that burns with the fury of a thousand supernovas, “I’m a Believer” begins to play.