Vera thought for a long afternoon after receiving that email. Her and Connie had been doing a little better lately, though Vera was still hurting from last winter when she’d tried to go to LA for Thanksgiving (“You’d have to dress proper,” Connie’d said matter-of-factly. “Don’t come otherwise. You can’t expect them to just take it, okay? You’ve gotta be reasonable with this stuff.”)

That had hurt. Still, now, Vera’d detected in Connie a resurging softness, a softness Vera had always known existed in her mother and had hoped would eventually resettle onto her. Finally, Vera responded with a very plain message: “You don’t have to believe I’m a woman. But if you want to keep a relationship with me, you’ll need to pretend that you do.”

That evening, from Connie, one word: “Okay.”

Vera put her head on her desk and breathed a long, shuddering sigh. She knew she was lucky. It didn’t happen for everyone.

It was a year later, Vera popping up at her transfer stop in Long Island City to smoke on her way home. She was in no particular hurry, lazily enjoying herself. Across the way at a bus stop, she spied a woman in sunglasses digging into a takeout bag …

“Holy shit,” Vera whispered.

Vera knew right away she wasn’t going to stop herself. “Yoohooooo!”

Vera stood and waved.

Iris didn’t notice.

Vera cupped her mouth. “HEY! IRIS!”

Iris looked around confused, and then suddenly her face had a Grand Canyon smile.

They went to a diner and had a big fucking dinner, both of them warm toward each other from the second they embraced. Iris was dating a new boy, still living in the same apartment, though it’d be demolished for condos soon and she’d have to move. She was full time at the marketing company and making major bank.

There was no discussion of Vera’s ghosting, nor any flickering current of romance or attraction between them. That was all done; that was obvious. There was only warmth. Also, enough pauses in their conversation toward the end of the meal that it seemed clear that they weren’t destined to be lifelong friends, that maybe this was truly the last time.

And then:

“I have to apologize to you for something,” Iris said.

Vera’s brain got whiplash. “Oh?” she said cautiously.

“There was this time back in Portland, when we were on the MAX. You were in a skirt. And these guys were laughing at you and saying horrible stuff. And you just stood up real quietly and said, like, ‘Let’s go over here,’ and we went to the other end of the car. I’ve always felt so bad about that. I never said anything. I didn’t stick up for you.”

Vera stared at Iris. For a few beats she was silent.

“That’s funny,” Vera said darkly. “Because I don’t remember that at all.”

“No?” Iris said timidly.

“I believe you,” Vera said. “I have no reason to think that didn’t happen. It just would’ve happened so often. I’d have no reason for it to stick out in my memory.” I remember other things, she thought. But then also, What else don’t I remember?