As I was walking from the bathroom to what I want to call the merch table at Instituto Cervantes before the Best European Fiction 2011 panel during the PEN World Voices Festival this year, I looked up and made eye contact with Aleksandar Hemon and made a face he mocks in a story in Love and Obstacles. The words on the page flashed in my mind, the description of how when an American unexpectedly catches the eyes of another, their eyebrows arch and their lips form a tight smile. Months earlier, I’d been walking down an empty section of West Broadway when I saw Junot Díaz coming in the other direction. Instead of just ignoring his presence and keeping on my way, I looked straight at him and summoned a ridiculous open-mouthed smile that I’d never made before and haven’t made since.