He is gesturing to the seat between them. She shrugs a little, mid-sip, and he slides over, his jacket at his old place like shed skin. He’s close to her now, for the first time since they recognized each other at morning drop-off. Rachel can hardly look at him, or take her eyes off him, and Martin, a possible lifeboat, bobs out of reach staring into his screen.

“I bet we’re both thinking the same thing,” Reynard murmurs. “That we’re both, mother and preschool teacher, irresponsible to be here.”

Rachel sips big. “I was thinking, that’s the guy who wrecked my wedding.” She says it loud enough to make the barman look up for a second at Reynard, peering a bit at the beard. But then Stanford knocks on the bar’s open door. “Come out Martin, come out Martin,” he says with unconvincing cheer. “Some bottles broke in the truck. Cabernet I think.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Martin asks, although he’s already grabbed towels.

“Bring fruit salad,” Stanford says, ducking back out. “We can make sangria.”

Martin doesn’t say anything, and in some ways hasn’t said anything for three foggy years. The weather has been bad, and so goes his life. He makes a lot of lists, and he tries to keep Gail Padgett Bottle’s name off them, the way he shouldn’t list finding a suitcase full of gold, or never again experiencing a hangover. There are fewer possibilities hanging around, and fewer customers too. It’s not quite a failure, his life’s work right here, but even thinking it’s not quite a failure is more failure than he can really stand to think about, and every night he still stares hangdog at the window looking for her silhouette. He slumps across the bar like the towels are a ton of weight, and this premise, those solid bottles breaking to lure the barman out of the place, this reason Martin and Stanford are not also staring at Reynard in recognition—well, Reynard does not know if this is the action of a ghost or a bump in the road. He cannot always figure out what he can do, only what he wants. This may or may not make him marriage material. At least now, though, he is alone with this woman.

“That wasn’t me,” he says.

“I recognized you the second, the second I walked into the school. So don’t.”

“I mean I’m a different person,” Reynard says. “That was, I’m very sorry about it, I should have started that way, straight out I should say how sorry I am, a very bad time for me.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Rachel says.

“I mean it.”

“OK.”

“I was an addict then. I stopped all that. I’m a new man, a different person.”

“I said OK.”

“I cleaned up, I stopped drinking.”

“You’re having a beer,” Rachel says, “right now.”