The streets of Newport were desolate in the off-season, so it came as a mild jolt when I turned the corner and saw my old friend Alissa Donegan in the window of the Seagull, the neighborhood’s overpriced Italian place. At first I doubted it was even her. I’d only seen her once or twice since the funeral. But on second look there was no question. She was sitting alone, eating a bowl of soup, and reading a paperback she seemed to be having a hard time keeping open. The window framed her grandly, the low candlelight etching a fine outline along her bare neck. For a moment, motionless, pinning the book’s spine in place, she could have been a stuffed display in a carefully composed diorama.

I’d begun looking forward to my whiskey and television at the cabin by that point, but before thinking I rapped on the glass. Alissa looked up, startled, and we gave each other questioning looks, then smiles. And the decision was made. I went inside to pay my respects.

Alissa was standing beside her table, waiting for me. She had long, black hair, narrow, graceful eyes, and cinnamon skin, testament to her mixed background of Filipino and Irish. Her mouth was bracketed by deep dimples and her body was petite but shapely. She might have thickened a little over the years, and some of the youthful sheen had worn off, but she remained, to me, a beautiful woman. At her table we hugged warmly.

“So bizarre,” I said.

“I’ve been thinking about you!” she said, which I knew to be an old trick of hers. She had always just been thinking about everyone. You could run into her at the library or at the DMV, and always you had just been on her mind. Another trick was the constant touching. Touching your shoulder, touching your elbow, an incessant subconversation of gentle brushes and cradlings. “What are you doing here?” she said, tugging my sleeve. Alissa could have been an actress, I thought. She was such an expert at tapping people’s affection.

I told her I came out to the coast pretty often, and asked her what she was doing there.

“Working,” she said. “I can’t concentrate in my house anymore. I need some peace and quiet. I really can’t believe you’re here, James. This is so amazing. Really, I was just thinking about you, and you showed up. I summoned you.”

I laughed. In the city Alissa was generally so distracted by social obligations she could barely stay in one place long enough to complete a conversation. In this case though, in an empty restaurant in an empty town on the empty coast, she was focused and present and I believed her charms. I wanted to believe.