From Amy Holman Edelman, the author of “Little Black Dress,” comes a tale of a woman forced back into the dating world after the death of her husband. “Manless in Montclair” is a fictionalized account of Edelman's own real-life experience. Here's an excerpt:

It was another hot and humid afternoon in August. A fine sheen covered everything, lending ordinary people a glow usually associated with saints and supermodels. Even my parquet floors were sweating.

At 2:15 I left my husband and went to the dentist to have my teeth whitened. Michael was sleeping when I left. He had been suffering for days from a chronic headache, and I thought it best not to wake him. I expected to be home in about an hour.

I swept back into our apartment at 3:45, teeth gleaming. The first thing I noticed was a wicked smell, like rubber burning on a hot sidewalk. Michael had gone to the acupuncturist the day before, seeking relief from his headache and, from past experience with such remedies, I assumed he must have brewed her special tea. I bypassed the living room and walked down the hall to our bedroom, where I’d left Michael sleeping an hour and a half before.

Our blue and white paisley duvet lay crumpled on the bed, but Michael was no longer under it. The air conditioner beckoned me with a loud rumble, and I stood in front of it for a moment, letting the stale breeze cool my skin. Sufficiently chilled, I turned and walked back down the hall into the heavier air of our living room. It was then that I saw him, lying at the foot of the green overstuffed chair, a few inches away from his favorite perch on the well-worn, beige linen sofa. Except for the small pool of blood that had formed on the rug beside his head, he looked as if he might still be sleeping.

I ran past Michael to the far end of the room, my heart beating hard in my throat. I rummaged through the papers and notebooks that covered my desk in search of the portable phone. Finding it, I dialed 911. After what felt like enough time to grow old in, a dispassionate voice finally came on to the line.

“I think my husband is dead,” I said, shaking. There was no thought. Just words and sweat and panic. “What should I do?”

“Why do you think he’s dead?” asked the woman, sounding slightly bored. I looked at Michael, shirtless on the floor. His skin, always fair and freckled, had turned an unnatural shade of lavender. And he was quiet. I had slept beside Michael for a dozen years, and he always snored like a water buffalo. Now, except for the crazy pounding in my chest, the silence was deafening. And finally, Michael was normally such a light sleeper. If he weren’t dead, surely in all this commotion he would have woken up by now.

“I’m pretty sure he’s dead,” I replied, digging my nails into my palms in an effort to keep from screaming. “Tell me what to do.”

The woman gave me instructions as if speaking to a ten-year-old. And like any good child, I did as I was told. I performed mouth-to-mouth and thought fleetingly that Michael’s lips still felt warm against mine. I lifted his callused hand and touched his wrist, feeling for a pulse.

He was still.

I felt numb.

“There’s no change,” I told the 911 operator. And then, clearly running out of options, I called on God for a miracle — a sudden gasp for breath, a fluttering of the eyelids. The woman instructed me to push on Michael’s chest, and I inadvertently hung up the phone to do so.

Push.

Nothing.

How did this happen? Just a few days ago I was telling my best friend Phoebe how unexpectedly well my life was going. She was right, I thought dejectedly. I should have spit. Because in the time it took to get my teeth a whiter shade of white, it was all gone, my guts in a knot as I knelt beside my motionless husband.

Push.

Nothing.

I needed further instructions. As long as I was doing something, I thought, there was still room for hope. I reached for the phone just as it began to ring. Could it be the 911 operator calling me?

“Hello?” I answered hopefully.

“Hi, Isabel!” said my upstairs neighbor Ivana in her heavy Serbian accent. “What are you doing?”

On most days my response would have been “Nothing, much ... what about you?” But today was not most days. “Actually,” I said, “I’m sitting on the floor next to Michael. I think he’s dead.”

And I was, to put it simply, a mess.

“You open your eyes. It’s dark. Your knees, which are pressed against your chest, begin to throb. The air is thick and your back hurts. But it isn’t until you try to raise an arm to scratch your nose that you realize you’re folded up in a tiny little box like a cheap piece of goods from Wal-Mart.”

It was three o’clock on a warm August afternoon, and my best friend Phoebe and I were sitting in a bar drinking frozen margaritas. Phoebe was reading a quiz from a recent issue of Cosmopolitan magazine, which proposed to determine our Sexuality Index.

“Then what happens?” I asked, leaning over, trying to get a glimpse of the page.

“Then you wake up. If you’re me,” she added, “there’s probably a little drool on the pillow.”

“That’s disgusting.” I reached for a corn chip. “What do you think it means?”

“The drool?”

“No, Phoebe. The dream.”

From a strictly aesthetic point of view, Phoebe drew eyes like a tall, blonde magnet, so strikingly beautiful it was impossible to look away. She shrugged her slender shoulders.

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