The moment the door closes behind her, it’s as if I’m released. I throw my drink down my throat, put my jacket on and follow. I’m so sorry I left her alone like that, let my nerves get the better of me. I want to make it right. I hurry, slipping on the wet linoleum. I mustn’t let her get away. I can explain and she’ll understand, I’m sure she will. Her eyes are so kind, so blue. I imagine the food I will cook for her. I’ll make her my chocolate chicken curry. Not everyone appreciates it but I bet she will.

I run out into the storm.

It’s still late afternoon but the cloud casts shadow over everything so it looks like dusk. Rain hits the puddles like bullets. The lot is filled with trucks and vans and I can’t see her anywhere. Then I do, at the far end of the lot, sitting in the warm-lit bubble of her small car. Her face is wet with rain, or she’s crying. She still has her driver’s side door open, as if even now she hasn’t quite decided to leave. She adjusts the blue thing around her neck, fumbles in her purse and finds Kleenex. She dries her face, and blows her nose. I am very moved by her poise and her courage. She stood up to life by coming out to meet me—life knocked her down, of course, because I didn’t show up—but look at her. She’s drying her face, about to pick herself up again. That’s the kind of person Olivia or Lauren could rely on. Those are the qualities I’m looking for in a friend. Someone who would be there for them, if I disappeared.

I bow my head into the billowing rain and go down the row of parked cars toward her.

DEE

“You said you would help,” Ted says.

“What?” It’s early on a Sunday morning, and Ted is on Dee’s doorstep. Her heart begins to pound, splashy and loud. In that moment she is convinced that he knows who she is and why she is here. Get a grip, Dee Dee, she tells herself. Nobody gets murdered on a gray Sunday morning. But they do, of course. She yawns to cover her fear, rubs the sleep from her eyes.

Ted shifts on his feet. His beard looks even thicker and redder than usual, skin whiter, eyes smaller and blearier. “You said if there was something I couldn’t do, uh, because of my arm, you would help out. Maybe you didn’t mean it.”

“Sure,” she says. “What’s up?”

“It’s this jar,” he says. “I can’t open it.”

“Hand it over.” Dee turns the lid hard, and it yields quickly. Inside the empty jar is a note. It reads, in neat block letters, LET’S GO OUT FOR DRINKS.