He did need jeans. That part is true, and Eli is careful about the parts that are true. It’s a useful habit. As long as every individual sentence holds up, nobody asks about the space between them.

So: he needed jeans. He walks down to Union Square alone. He has been in this dressing room for forty minutes looking at a mirror that isn’t showing him anything he didn’t already know.

That’s all it is.

Ask him and that’s what he’ll say.