She smiled back at him. “And you,” she said.

He took the Post-it off the book and opened it to sign. “Just your name is fine,” she said, and he signed it quickly—illegibly, she noted. A big scribble. They talked for a minute or two more, Annie increasingly aware of all the people behind her. Remembering it later, she wasn’t even sure what they had said, but she was waiting through it anyway, waiting for him to say what he did then.

“Look, Annie,” leaning toward her, lowering his voice. “Why don’t we get a drink somewhere when I’m done here?” He was holding the book out to her. “It’d be nice to take a break from the never-ending enforced politeness of the book tour. That’s hard to sustain for someone like me.” He grinned again. “Plus I’d love to catch up.”

Annie looked over at the long line. “You won’t be done here for a while,” she said. “Maybe we could meet somewhere close by?”

That sounded excellent, he said, and she suggested the bar in the restaurant of the Charles Hotel, a couple of blocks away. “It’s a nice bar. Quiet. Come up the staircase from the lobby. It’s easy to find.”

Before she’d even turned to go, the man behind her was pushing his book across at Ian, asking if he could inscribe it to a friend.

Outside, the bricks were wet and whited with the salty residue of the snow. The shoveled hillocks stood at the edge of the sidewalk, stained here and there with dog piss. Annie walked slowly, thinking about Ian, about how this might go. She was, she would have said to anyone who asked, excited. But also anxious. Maybe a bit scared.

Well, she would see, she thought. And if things weren’t going well, if things were awkward or difficult somehow, she had an excuse ready—that she couldn’t stay too long, on account of the cat.

But what if things were going well?

She could offer him a drink at her house, of course. The cat could be useful in that case too—she needed to get home to let him in. It wouldn’t be hard to invite Ian to come with her.

Inside the hotel, the ground-floor lobby was almost empty. She mounted the wide, carpeted stairs and went into the bar. She could hear the hubbub of conversation from around the corner, where the restaurant opened out. The bar was quieter—there were only two tables occupied out here, one by a couple, the other by a solitary man. Japanese, she thought, in an expensive-looking suit, having his dinner. The wall of windows behind him looked out on the vast, empty courtyard, the only light out there the tiny white bulbs wrapped around the trees, leftover Christmas decorations.

She ordered a whiskey, rocks on the side. When the drink came, she sat sipping it and looking out at the dark night, at the twinkly lights.

Then Ian was there, at the top of the stairs, glancing quickly around to see which way to go. He saw her and grinned. Even as he threaded his way around the unoccupied tables, he was smiling at her.

He leaned forward and touched her cheeks with his again before he sat down opposite her. He was glad she’d already ordered for herself, he said, and turned to signal the waiter. He asked for a beer.

While they waited, they expressed amazement once more. He asked about the guy she’d been talking to in the line. Oh, an old, old friend of hers and her husband’s, she said. He worked in the store.

Oh, yes. He remembered: she was married. And he smiled again, his minimal, sly smile.

“I was,” she said. “I’m a widow now,” she said, surprising herself.

Clearly surprising him too. His face changed. “Oh, I’m really sorry.”

Had she wanted to do that? To startle him? To catch him off guard?

Was she using Graham, Graham’s dying, for that?

“Well, it’s been a while,” she said.

“Still . . . ,” he said. He talked about his divorce then. “Not that it’s comparable in any way.” He’d gone into a funk, he said. “Technically, I suppose, a depression.” He’d stopped writing for a while. He described his slow recovery, the sense he had of returning to his work changed, strengthened in some way.

His beer came, and he raised his glass. “To . . . reunions, let’s say.”

She raised her glass too, and they clicked them together over the table.

They talked about the reading then. She said how much she’d enjoyed it. He talked about the difficulty of choosing a passage to read, he described a couple of the possibilities he’d rejected, and explained why. She asked about the book tour—how long? Where? How was it going?

He spoke easily of the various cities he’d already been to. The bookstores. The size of the audience. Where he was going next. How long he’d be “on the road,” as he called it.

He was enjoying it, he said. He’d done almost nothing for his earlier books, so this felt like an opportunity. “To, you know, give it a boost if I can. And of course, given the isolation of the work I do, ‘the solitary life of the writer’”—he’d made his voice pompous—“it’s kind of a treat, really. To be out and about.” He looked at her and then smiled, leaning forward toward her over the table. “But you must understand that—you live the solitary life too. You’re a painter, am I remembering that right?”

She had a quick small shock at his mistake. But then it seemed reasonable, it was so long ago. “You’re in the realm anyway,” she said. “The visual arts. I’m a photographer.”

“Ach!” he said, and hit his temple lightly with the heel of his hand. “The old errant brain.” He smiled. “Do you find it happens more and more to you, too?”

They talked about it for a while, a conversation she’d jokingly had with various acquaintances. The familiar litany of forgetfulness—where had you parked the car? why had you come into this room? what was the name, goddammit, of this very person you were exchanging pleasantries with? where had you left your glasses?

They laughed. They moved on. He spoke of his sense that he had one more book in him, and as part of that discussion, she learned his age—seventy-four. He said he had a wonderful young editor—“Young to me, anyway”—and that this guy had given him hope, at long last, for his future in the publishing world.

They were quiet for a few seconds. It seemed too long to Annie. She said, “I have a coincidence for you.”

“Good. I love coincidences. I’m a writer, after all.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, what would we do without them—coincidences—those of us trying to make fiction?”

“But they’re useful in life too, aren’t they?” she said. “Or interesting anyway.”

“Yes, they are. Sometimes very interesting. This evening being a prime example.”

She felt shy suddenly. She sensed she was blushing. “Well, I hope you’ll love this one too,” she said. “This coincidence. It has to do with Lucas.”

“Lucas.” He looked puzzled. “Lucas McFarlane?”

“Yes. I’ll give you a hint,” she said. “It’s my name, too. McFarlane.”

It was only now that it occurred to her, with a little jolt, that this might have been something he would have noticed when he first met Lucas—if he’d remembered her name from MacDowell.

It might even have been something he would have asked her about earlier this evening, she thought. If he’d remembered that.

“God, that is amazing!” he said.

She was silent, feeling suddenly unsure of what he might have recalled about her, what he might not. Finally she said, “And that’s the least of it.” She could hear the change in her own voice.

After a moment, he said, “Am I supposed to guess?” He tilted his head, a faint smile playing on his lips.

She smiled back. It’s okay, she thought. It’s going to be okay. She said, “No. You wouldn’t be able to, I don’t think.” She lifted her shoulders, her hands. “It’s that he’s my stepson. Lucas is. My husband’s son. By a first marriage.”

“Jesus!” he said. His face was openly surprised.

“I know,” she said. “We figured out the connection, that you were a writer of his, at Thanksgiving, actually, and it was exactly that surprising to me, too.” She sipped at her whiskey. “I think I said ‘Jesus,’ too.” She laughed, lightly.

“God!” He shook his head slowly. “Unbelievable!”

They sat in silence for a long moment. He grinned at her. “Well, I guess I’ll be smiling at Lucas a lot more than I used to.”

“He’ll enjoy that, of course.”

He was quiet again. Then he said, “But it’s a bit embarrassing, really.”

“Is it?”

“Isn’t it?”

“Why would it be?” Annie asked.

“Well, what I imagine is that now, when I look at him, I’ll be thinking of you.”

“That wouldn’t be so awful, would it?”

“No, not at all, not at all.” He sipped at his beer again. Setting it down, he grinned at her. “God, some of those nights in your studio . . .” He shook his head. “Pretty damn memorable. All of them were, actually, those nights. It was . . . an amazing couple of weeks, wasn’t it?” He leaned across the table toward her, his soft voice a kind of beckon to intimacy. “That was one residency I was sorry to see the end of.”