Karen called Annie at 12:25 but she didn’t speak any words Annie could hear. The connection abruptly ended. Annie knew it was Karen from the caller ID. She pressed the green button on her landline, but all that came through was two clicks and some static.

She expected confusion from Karen. She waited a minute and then tried again, this time with her cell phone. Karen picked up.

“I’m outside your place,” she informed Annie, “but there’s no parking.”

“That’s weird; I was just out front and there were places everywhere.” Annie couldn’t see the street from her garden cottage, but she knew the block wasn’t busy. “Are you in front of 2611?”

“Twenty-six eleven? Oh. I must have read my phone wrong. I thought your address was twenty-eight eleven.”

“I get it. I know where you are.”

“Right near Russell Street.”

“Sure. Let’s see: You’ll have to turn around, and …” Annie paused as she considered the traffic barriers. What a muddle. “On second thought,” she concluded, “stay right where you are. I’ll come to you.”

“You sure?”

“Oh yeah. Stay there. Just give me five minutes.”

Annie locked doors, picked up her keys and sunglasses, draped her bag across her torso, and left her yard. She took her weekday route, south toward the BART station. Within a few minutes she crossed Stuart and began looking for Karen’s car.

“A boxy silver SUV,” was Karen’s description. Which meant Annie was looking for one of the commonest cars in Berkeley, and a major difference from the Mustang convertibles Karen used to drive.

Annie perused the street as she paced south. She saw a few SUVs, all boxy and silver, but most of the parking spaces held Priuses. She was reminded of pop-beads – same-shaped car bodies of every color, all parked parallel and appearing bumper-connected. She glanced into the driver’s windows of the boxy few and didn’t see her friend. Then she shifted her focus from curbside to street center.

She saw what she concluded must be Karen’s car. Not parked but idling. Not at the curb but in the middle of the southbound lane, at the stop sign, immediately before the right turn onto Russell.

As Annie approached she was overtaken by a moving Prius. Of course she didn’t hear it, but she glimpsed the blue body in her peripheral vision and then watched the vehicle edge up, dolphin-like, behind Karen. The Prius driver hesitated only a second before pulling left and around Karen’s car.

“Wow,” Annie murmured. “I guess she took me at my word when I said ‘Stay right there.’ Wow.” She went right and opened the passenger door.

“Hey there,” Karen said. Karen always opened a conversation with “hey there,” and concluded with “bye now.” The phrases annoyed Annie but there were other qualities about Karen that annoyed her more. Annie’s friends marveled that she still spent time with Karen, but she had no skill at breaking up with friends, and she and Karen went way back. And it wasn’t like they spent much time together, any more. It had been three months since they’d conversed and almost a year since they’d been together without others.

Annie looked her old friend over as she strapped herself into the passenger seat. Karen had reported that she’d lost some weight, but to Annie she looked as large as ever. She’d aged ten years in as many months. She still wore big tops and loose pants, still sat like a truck driver and walked like a cop, had traded her old sensible oxfords for truly orthopedic footwear, continued to pull her hair straight and have it colored pale red. But the freckles that had concealed her face wrinkles had given up the battle; now her round spotted face was fully lined and her light blue eyes peered out from sagging lids. The skin on her hands looked a little shiny. Her always trimmed and unvarnished nails showed ridges and discoloration. She was halfway through her 60th year and she looked 80.

She drove like an 80 year-old too. Karen used to enjoy fast cars and aggressive maneuvers, but on this cross-town jaunt she never reached the speed limit. She didn’t pull into an intersection to start a left turn until the traffic had cleared: like she was navigating the streets of Eugene instead of Berkeley. She was eerily calm and oddly slow, and no one honked at her. It was as if the other drivers knew she was “special,” and gave her extra room. The short trip reminded Annie of the adage about the Lord taking care of fools.