1. How is your mother’s knee replacement working out?
2. How is your grandfather?
3. How was your vacation? Did you eat any good food? What was your favorite thing to do out there?
4. How is work going? It must be hard to deal with some situations. What do you do to relax?

And the last . . .

1. How are you doing without Lauren?

Chances were low that he’d manage to ask that one. But he referred to the first index card, asked, and Sarah started talking in a friendly-enough way.

Lauren was the one who’d been good at this. With her, Josh picked up on cues, listened to her talk to people, watched her face as she smiled or frowned or nodded. He always felt more present, more at ease with himself and other people when he’d been with his wife. She was the key to his being fully engaged. He remembered to nod as Sarah paused, asked a follow-up question and tried to smile at the right places. He referred to card number two, then three when her answer was brief.

They ordered their dinners; fish for him, steak for her. Card number four.

He hated that everyone looking at them would assume they were on a date. He wished he could somehow communicate that he still loved his wife, that this was her friend, that he was absolutely not interested in her that way.

The food came. He took a bite of trout. It was pretty good. “How’s your steak?” he asked Sarah.

“Good. How’s your fish?”

“Good.”

The conversation was not exactly rapier sharp. How long had they been here? Two hours? Three? He sneaked a look at his watch. Thirty-nine minutes.

Aha! He thought of something to say. “I bought a vase the other day. From Hawaii.”

“Cool. What does it look like?”

“You know. It’s . . . blue. And it has white on it. Like a cresting wave.”

“Sounds pretty.” She cut another piece of meat.

“Yes.” It was gorgeous, in fact. One of a kind, handmade on Kauai, at the same shop where he and Lauren bought a sculpture on their honeymoon.

“You guys brought me a beautiful paperweight from Hawaii.”

“Did we?” Lauren had bought dozens of gifts, it seemed.

“Yes.” Sarah poured herself a second glass of wine. “So about all the shitty things you said to me, Josh.”

“Yes. Still sorry.”

“You know what? Everything was true. About how I was pissy and jealous.” She shook her head, her eyes getting shiny. “Lauren was . . . sparkly. You know? She sparkled.”

“Yes,” Josh said. It was the perfect word for her.