Ruth brought out a tray. After putting the tea on the table, she offered Judy some cookies.

“No, thank you.”

“Are you sure?”

“When I say no I mean no.”

Ruth put the cookies down. “Is everything okay?”

“What do you mean, everything?”

“I don’t know. I just mean how are things going?”

“Fine.” She frowned as if this were an odd question.

Another painful silence, but Ruth noticed that Judy seemed more nervous than usual, worrying at the collar of her baby-blue dress. Though she kept her auburn hair in a slightly too severe poodle cut, Judy was potentially quite attractive, with large hazel eyes and disordered, slightly fleshy lips that put Ruth in mind of a delicate red anemone. That attractiveness could never fully emerge, however, because Judy always looked as if the world, against all reason, were determined to hurt and insult her.

“Were you writing one of your books in there?”

“Yes.”

A rare question, which Judy didn’t follow up.

“They’re not hard. The stories and characters are always more or less the same.”

“I don’t read books,” Judy said. “If I have spare time I’d rather be doing something useful.”

“You’ve never read a book?”

“I’ve read some of the classics, but I certainly wouldn’t read any of those books. Anyway, Redmond says the Bible leaves all other books in the dust.”

“What’s your favorite part of the Bible?” She felt a cruel urge to upend this rude and difficult woman.

“I don’t make judgments like that about the Lord’s word.”

“There must be some passage, some psalm?”

“They’re all equally good to me.”

“I love the last passage in Bubbaronomy spoken by the eponymous disciple: And yea they shall come, and the women shall lament in the passing of Urea when the cries of the offal bearers despoil the righteous and shall be drawn through the bowels of the earth for judgment.”

“Yes, yes, they’re all equally good. It’s the Lord’s word.”

Ruth nodded. Her invention hadn’t made her feel any better.

Judy suddenly reached up to touch her lip just beside what looked like a cold sore. “I was around at Mrs. Hanratty’s and I think by mistake I picked up her glass. My lips were very dry. I’d forgotten to put Vaseline on them. It was very windy over to her place. It’s the first time I’ve ever had anything like this.”

“Oh…oh, yes. They’re a pain. Sometimes it helps, when you feel one coming up, to put ice on it.”

Judy had bent forward a little, hugging herself as if she were cold and staring at the rug. There was something helpless and pathetic about this posture and Ruth felt guilty. Still, this woman was like something caught in her throat. She decided to let the silence linger.

At last Judy said, “Why did you stop dating Goldwin?”

“I didn’t want to be more than friends.”

“You were here for five years alone.”

“I had Fifty-Three.”

“Why didn’t you marry that Englishman?”