Alice Munros Best

dilapidated house must have thrown everyone into a state of indolence and fecklessness. There was a fan in the room they used as an office, and she saw, as she went by, some papers blow off the desk. “Oh, shit,” said the office girl, and stamped her heel on them.
    The chairs set up in the shade of the dusty city trees were straight-backed old wooden chairs originally painted different colors – they looked as if they had come from various kitchens. Strips of old carpet and rubber bathroom mats were laid down in front of them, to keep your feet off the gravel. Behind the first row of chairs she thought she saw a sheep lying on the ground, but it turned into a dirty-white dog, which trotted over and looked at her for a moment in a grave semi-official way – gave a brief sniff at her shoes, and trotted away. She had not noticed if there were any drinking straws and did not feel like going back to look. She drank Coke from the bottle, tilting back her head and closing her eyes.
    When she opened them, a man was sitting one chair away, and was speaking to her.
    “I got here as soon as I could,” he said. “Nancy said you were going to catch a bus. As soon as I finished with the speech, I took off. But the bus depot is all torn up.”
    “Temporarily,” she said.
    “I knew you right away,” he said. “In spite of – well, many years. When I saw you, I was talking to somebody. Then I looked again and you’d disappeared.”
    “I don’t recognize you,” said Louisa.
    “Well, no,” he said. “I guess not. Of course. You wouldn’t.”
    He was wearing tan slacks, a pale-yellow short-sleeved shirt, a cream-and-yellow ascot scarf. A bit of a dandy, for a union man. His hair waswhite but thick and wavy, the sort of springy hair that goes in ripples, up and back from the forehead, his skin was flushed and his face was deeply wrinkled from the efforts of speechmaking – and from talking to people privately, she supposed, with much of the fervor and persuasiveness of his public speeches. He wore tinted glasses, which he took off now, as if willing that she should see him better. His eyes were a light blue, slightly bloodshot and apprehensive. A good-looking man, still trim except for a little authoritative bulge over the belt, but she did not find these serviceable good looks – the careful sporty clothes, the display of ripply hair, the effective expressions – very attractive. She preferred the kind of looks Arthur had. The restraint, the dark-suited dignity that some people could call pompous, that seemed to her admirable and innocent.
    “I always meant to break the ice,” he said. “I meant to speak to you. I should have gone in and said goodbye at least. The opportunity to leave came up so suddenly.”
    Louisa did not have any idea what to say to this. He sighed. He said, “You must have been mad at me. Are you still?”
    “No,” she said, and fell back, ridiculously, on the usual courtesies. “How is Grace? How is your daughter? Lillian?”
    “Grace is not so well. She had some arthritis. Her weight doesn’t help it. Lillian is all right. She’s married but she still teaches high school. Mathematics. Not too usual for a woman.”
    How could Louisa begin to correct him? Could she say, No, your wife Grace got married again during the war, she married a farmer, a widower. Before that she used to come in and clean our house once a week. Mrs. Feare had got too old. And Lillian never finished high school, how could she be a high-school teacher? She married young, she had some children, she works in the drugstore. She had your height and your hair, dyed blond. I often looked at her and thought she must be like you. When she was growing up, I used to give her my stepdaughter’s outgrown clothes.
    Instead of this, she said, “Then the woman in the green dress – that was not Lillian?”
    “Nancy? Oh, no! Nancy is my guardian angel. She keeps track of where I’m going, and when, and have I got my speech, and what I drinkand eat and have I taken my pills. I tend toward high blood pressure. Nothing too serious. But my way of life’s no good. I’m on the go constantly. Tonight I’ve got to fly out of here to Ottawa, tomorrow I’ve got a tough meeting, tomorrow night I’ve got some fool banquet.”
    Louisa felt it necessary to say, “You knew that I got married? I married Arthur Doud.”
    She thought he showed some surprise. But he said, “Yes, I heard that. Yes.”
    “We worked hard too,” said