“Yes,” said the young man, and he thought for a second, remembering. With a look and a slight tilt of the head, he indicated the other end of the lobby.

“She’s at the bar.”

How unpredictable life is, I thought. In the morning one is a glorified secretary, and at night one’s “representative” has retrieved a bag one has attempted to pick up while masquerading as someone else.

I thanked the young man and made my way toward the bar. I was strangely calm, as if this were how I had imagined my evening unfolding all along. It was clear that the young man at the front desk found nothing odd in the arrangement. As I approached the bar, I scanned its patrons for anyone obviously attached to a piece of luggage, but I saw nothing more remarkable than a few women with handbags. I cast a glance back at the reception desk, but the young man was already helping a new set of guests, a harried-looking couple with a small, fidgety child. I turned my attention back to the bar. There was, I saw, one female figure who appeared to be unaccompanied, and the more I studied her the more I had a strong impression of familiarity, like the whiff of a familiar scent. I know the set of those shoulders, I thought; I know that brassy hair. I had approached this particular hair-and-shoulder combination not so long ago, from the very same angle, amid the blue skies and birdsong of the Arboretum. So this was my representative, I thought. It was the guest lecturer.

I stood somehow immobilized a yard or two behind her, like a butler waiting at table. Tonight she was wearing a suit very similar to the one she’d worn the night we’d met, except instead of lavender, this one was white. White jacket, white pants. Who was she, and why had she decided to attach herself to me? Not only to my waking life, but to my dreams. I looked around her for a bag of any kind but saw only on the bar in front of her a long red lacquered-looking pouch. Clearly a woman’s, clearly not Daniel Shriver’s, clearly not a suitcase. There was no bag, I realized. It was all a bizarre ploy to bring me face-to-face with the guest lecturer again.

Just then there was a loud crash from the front end of the lobby. The vase of white lilies had fallen to the floor in front of the reception desk and shattered. Water was dripping steadily from the counter’s lip, and the mother was remonstrating with her little boy, her hand viselike on his arm.

When I turned back to the bar, the guest lecturer was gone.