Adverbs by Daniel Handler

we can learn to do again, and if so, when will that time arrive, even on a bad day? When do you know when something is becoming something that changes you? That’s what Andrea was thinking of, and a Ramos Gin Fizz, as she watched the snowcapped figure of the detective’s partner topple to the sidewalk and the swift shadow of Mike dodge down the street. When do you learn that the world, like any diner worth its salt, is open twenty-four hours a day?
    Now. Mike ran after her through the drips and drabs of snow on the ground. It never snowed in San Francisco. Never never never. Okay, once when I was in kindergarten, and I think some other times, but it doesn’t stick. This is love, an impossible thing that will change your frigid life, and Mike believed it was happening and ran after her into the night. But by the time the detective got outside there was nothing he could see, and so he went back inside.
    “Which way did she go?” he said, and remembered his hat. “Which way did the Snow Queen go?”
    “I don’t know,” Andy said. “If I were you I wouldn’t go out there and I wouldn’t want to know. Not you.”
    “I can’t believe what I saw,” Andrea said. “The therapy I’ll need or something. Or, I should sober up, and drive a cab for a living now. You meet people in a cab. A miracle could happen and I would see the Snow Queen again.”
    The detective peered out of the painted window and banged his head on the glass, hard. It rattled and rattled people.
    “Don’t do that!” cried the cook. “Watch what you’re doing! Pay attention to what’s going on!”
    “She’s gone southside,” the detective moaned. “I don’t know which direction to go,” and this is love, too. If you miss your Snow Queen you might not appear in the love story anymore. “Men grow cold as girls grow old,” a song says. “Men grow cold as girls grow old, and we all lose our charms in the end.” This is a love story, which must be grabbed in time. Mike knew it, and he ran in the rain on the snow. He had been wearing a sweatshirt this whole time and it was getting heavy and wet. He had the chills as he chased after her, and that’s part of love, too. You get the chills when you get close to her, and you run until you slip in a puddle, “Ouch,” and the Snow Queen turns around.
    “Oh dear,” she said. “You’re the boy from the diner and you slipped in a puddle. You’ll catch cold. You’d better come inside.”
    “Okay,” Mike said, and she pulled him to his feet. “I saw what you did and it was amazing.”
    “You’re wet,” she said. “Your sweatshirt is soaked and heavy. I’m worried sick about you.”
    Where does the Snow Queen live? As it turns out, in a small, cramped apartment on the third floor of a nearby building on the corner of Seventeenth and Church. When love appears it’s a supernatural thing like the songs say, but eventually you have to get out of bed, even on the coldest of days, and pay the rent. She held the door open for him.
    “Do you have to invite me in?” Mike asked. “Is it like vampires?”
    “I should have known,” the Snow Queen said, “that a boy your age would have a thing for vampires. As you well know, that’s what made my fortune, my boy.”
    They walked in and saw what she was talking about. The place was little more than some walls and a kitchenette, and everywhere were very large stacks of magazines, and photographs taped to the walls every which way. I told you it was cramped. Mike walked quietly and took it in while the Snow Queen took off her shawl and boiled water for tea. “You should take off your sweatshirt, dear.”
    “Mike,” Mike said, and took off his sweatshirt. “Look, you really were an actress. These pictures are you in old monster movies.”
    “That was me,” the Snow Queen said. “Dracula’s daughter. A girl who comes across a terrible secret at her uncle’s castle. Look, in this one a ghost falls in love with me and we go to a restaurant.