At her age, Sheila said grimly, cheerily, the seasons spin and you don’t need to be reminded of the “new” year, or forced to realize that it’s the “old” come round again.

Happy holidays! Safe drinkers make safe drivers!

Still, she suspected that Monica was the kind of person who innocently thrives on holidays. A secret talent for the domestic, for mulled cider, roast turkey with oyster dressing, emotional bric-a-brac, no? yes? “What of your friend Keith?” Sheila asked carefully.

“What of him?” Monica said.

“What are his plans for Christmas? Is he staying here, or going away?”

Monica tried to think.

“I don’t know,” she said finally. “Maybe he hasn’t any.”

Sheila stared hard at her, smiling, critical. “This is the time of year,” she said, “when everyone has plans. Except—those who don’t.”

“I don’t have any plans,” Monica said.

Sheila lit a cigarette; yawned again, and stretched, luxuriant as a cat; deliberately spoke of other matters . . . every chimney, every bloody chimney, at Edgemont needed repairs . . . and vandals, neighborhood kids, were driving their snowmobiles through her fences, tearing up her fields . . . and the sable brushes she’d been using since the age of fourteen seemed to be deteriorating in quality in direct proportion to their increase in price. As to Siegmund—the poor dog had been poisoned, Sheila was convinced, though the vet was too cowardly to say so, he wouldn’t have wanted Sheila to go to the police and drag him into it. Poor Siegmund!—it was a mercy when he was finally put to sleep but mercy hadn’t come quick enough, he’d certainly suffered.

Monica’s eyes stung with tears. “I’m sorry to hear that,” she said. “I was very fond of Siegmund.”

“Well,” said Sheila, sucking on her cigarette, frowning as if the taste repulsed her, “—Siegmund was very fond of you.”

Monica invited Sheila and Keith to dinner, so that, at last, they might meet; but though Keith accepted the invitation readily, happily—he is lonely, Monica thought—Sheila made polite vague excuses. She had already met the man, she believed. That is, they’d been introduced, years ago, Keith Renwick wasn’t it?—she had no clear memory of him but she remembered the name.

Monica felt unreasonably hurt, irritated.

Sheila said, as if to mollify her friend’s response: “I’m only comfortable with lawyers when they’re in my pay.”