My new boyfriend Pete is sitting across from me at my makeshift dinner table. I say "makeshift" because it doubles as my computer table, which is its use 99 percent of the time. That's how often I cook.

And he looks at me with that sincere, teddy bear expression I find so endearing, and says, "You know you can tell me anything, anything that's on your mind."

I stare at him dumbly. Is he a mind reader, or has he been pilfering through my journals? I immediately discount the latter - besides, they're safely hidden in the far corners of a cubbyhole he'll never find - so muse upon the former. He is reading my mind. So I tell him this, "Well, I'm the most monogamous person in the world, but I have trouble letting go of the past ... Do you know what I'm talking about?"

He stabs his lasagna blithely. "Oh sure. The heart's a funny organ."

He smiles again. The man is evolved.

So I continue. "I don't think that, at our age, just because we get into a relationship we just immediately forget the previous ones, right? I mean, there's some carryover ..."

"Oh sure," he agrees, a little too quickly. Sips his wine, winks.

Now I'm wondering where all this is going to lead, so just smile back ... but my head is rumbling like a Jerry Springer show ... With Valentine's Day upon us, could it be that K, G, R or even C (from some 20 years ago beside a country road, where he gave me an abalone heart he'd carved himself) were fighting my boyfriend for star billing?

I shake some Parmesan onto the pasta as Pete says, "My ex got married, has two kids and seems to be pretty happy. I never could have made her happy, not that way."

He is content. My cat Wendell curls up to Pete, seducing him with raccoon whiskers and a scandalous tail. Wendell wins the prize: the shrimp from the salad his mama had shoved aside.

"Pete, don't you miss her?" I ask.

"Not really." He didn't miss her. He is eating his salad and lasagna and licking his fingers as if I am his only Valentine. And yet, he'd agreed with my premise that it was conceivable that all our exes follow us into future relationships. Had he just agreed to appease me? Was he not the sweetest man alive? And if he wasn't the sweetest, was K? Well no. K -- who brought me the Sopranos' CD and two bottles of wine last Valentine's, as well as one of those good luck beaded bracelets -- was never quite meant to be. And G - although a journalist of note, was substantially older and surely so out of reach that even a supermodel might have had a time snaring him.

Of course, K and G - whom I'd both once considered husband material - still, when the pop song on the radio is right, dance in my dreams as deliriously as a little girl upon the surf. Their hands are strong and voices sure, and they hold me as we face our futures together. With K each scene is set to Sarah McLaughlin; whereas with G, it's Sting, specifically singing "Little Wing."

Even R remains. R and I shared a love of Venice, theater, books and good coffee. If ever there was a man who was easy to be with, it was he. This was the kind of man who thought nothing of driving fifty miles out of his way to pick me up during my carless years or laugh politely at my dad's elevator tennis shoes one Fourth of July. R was a listener, a giver, and that's hard to find.

But it is not R, not K, not C and not G here with me now. It is Pete. And he is looking a little too sexy to be a teddy bear anymore. (Coincidentally, C - my first love, was the original teddy bear! Oh, there I go again ...)

"What ya thinking about, babe?" he asks.

I ... well, suddenly I can't remember anymore.

"Nothing," I say. And it is the truth.

And at that point, I put down the lasagna, and just maybe, maybe? ... another one of those ghosts and embrace this teddy bear. After all, that is what he deserves.