Le Roquentin was a café near where she lived; she could hardly claim it was inconvenient. Anyway, a person needs her decaf in the afternoon (now she took herbal tea). But when she arrived, her mouth was set in that way he recognized, one corner pulled with the irony she meant him to recognize. This was another burden he put on her. Due to her good nature, she could not refuse to meet him; but she could show him the notched corner of her mouth.

He was at the table already, his glasses put away. Her shadow entered, astigmatically fuzzed at the edges. He stood. "You're so prompt," she said.

"It's my defect."

"Well, I'm on time, even if you insist on being early."

And there too was the little package with a ribbon tied around it, waiting. She extended her face, kissed the air near him; he put his hand on the loose hairs at the back of her neck and brushed his lips against her cheek and mouth. They seemed dry to him. He wondered if she could dry them instantly by an act of will.

She had come in carrying herself high, with that look she had of a woman who practiced carrying things on her head. "It always got me noticed," she admitted, "when I thought I wasn't pretty."

"Whoever thought you weren't pretty?" He wanted to say beautiful; she wouldn't like that.

"What I carried on my head was my father's books. And then at Yale I started to read them."

"Who?" he repeated.

"You think you did that for me? I lost a few pounds because you ran me around, but pretty? It just gradually dawned on me. And you know? It's not bad."

This could have been one of the irksome birthday lunches of the first few years after their divorce. It wasn't even an occasion, unless you could call a wedding anniversary an 'occasion' when the former bride didn't recollect the date.

"You look so well, so fine. You're in love."

She shrugged. "Seems possible. Whatever. Happened before."

"Care to tell me about him?"

She laughed , showing her largish, yellow, healthy teeth, and shook her finger at him. "Care not to," she said. "You shouldn't drink so much coffee. Makes you jittery, unless I do that."

"Jittery isn't the word."

This time she wagged her finger and said nothing. If he wanted to have future friendly encounters with her, he would have to behave.

She was sitting in front of him, fresh and smiling. She had a lover who made her happy. Her eyes were crinkled at the edges and her smile had that little notch of irony at the corner. She was impatient to finish this obligation, finish her rose-hip tea.

Unfortunately, what she liked, when she found herself someplace, was not to be wishing she were elsewhere. Wanting what a person doesn't have and not setting about to get it immediately was a waste of a person's strength. She was here, but thinking about being gone. In some Virtual Reality new age, when people were cybernetically perfect, correctable by lightly pressing the Correct key—just touching it with a command, really—everyone might be like her: Kind to the downtrodden, merciless to the demanding; entertained by the weather, uncomplaining about the elements; willing to enjoy, resolute at concluding what was no longer enjoyable.

Once, during their happy courtship, sharing The New York Times together over Sunday eggs and toast in this very same Café Roquentin (he remembered, she didn't), she put the paper down a moment, reading about somebody spraying bullets where bullets didn't belong, and asked a question or two (didn't require an answer, just offering her thoughts): "I wonder why anyone would ever want to take revenge. After all, didn't you give them the chance to do something bad to you? And so whose fault is it? And then didn't you learn something, move right along?"

Shook her head, lifted her coffee, went back to her paper.

Some people entrust their welfare to routines, family, or chemical aids. Early on she had learned to entrust her well-being to herself. That way there were no mistakes. When everyone is like her, global warming will be adequately opposed and the ozone layer will be plump and full. The experience of love and the ozone field will do exactly what they are supposed to do.