Annie wasn’t having any fun. Not that she’d use the word to describe time with the old Karen, but at least then they could walk, they could argue about business philosophy in the privacy of the street, and they could give one another ideas that sometimes worked out to be productive afterwards. At this lunch, Annie felt like a caretaker. Her volunteer work was about building inclusive housing, which meant meeting a lot of disabled folks, and lunch with Karen was feeling like volunteer work. She looked past her companion’s fat face, out the bistro window onto Shattuck Avenue. She was startled to see her old friend Philip.

He was walking, poorly, with an escort. The escort was his friend George. George recognized Annie, spoke several times to Philip, and they turned toward the bistro entrance. Within a minute they were at Annie’s tableside.

Annie knew Philip wasn’t doing well. Up to a few years ago they used to hike on weekends, share dinners out, attend opera together. Philip was a Britishy bachelor-type even though he’d been married for twenty years before Susan died of cancer. He had finicky ideas about food and wine and fine art, and very little sense of humor. He looked like Don Knotts but with a sparse beard on his retreating chin. Annie remembers being startled once by his wit – in response to her recommendation that he get more exercise than walking, he stated that sometimes he felt the urge to exercise, but he found that if he lay down for a bit, the urge would pass. Annie was tickled. It was a few months later that she happened across the quote he’d lifted, from Robert Maynard Hutchins or J.P. McEvoy, or maybe from the movie “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” Anyway, it wasn’t original to Philip, and he acted like it was. Annie didn’t approve.

George and Philip only spent a minute at the table. The brief encounter didn’t allow time for her to introduce Karen to them, but that was just as well. Neither Karen nor Philip was particularly conversant, and George looked beset by friendship responsibilities.

Philip seemed as slight, inhibited, and womanish as ever, but unsteady and confused. He managed a little smile but stumbled over “how are you” and misplaced the word for “weather” when he pointed through the window at the perfect sunshine. Blocky George reminded Annie, as always, of a leprechaun built of Lego bricks. After the men departed, Annie briefed Karen.

“He’s the man I used to travel with sometimes,” she said. “A few of our mutual friends thought or hoped we’d make a couple, but that was not happening, for me at least. As far as I know, his wife Susan was the activist in their relationship – maybe if I’d told Philip it was time for us to be together, we would have been. But there’s no way that would ever work for me, even if I found him attractive (not). Anyway, he’s developing some dementia now.”

“He seemed a little off,” Karen commented.

“More than a little. And the poor man is losing his ability to speak. He had the biggest vocabulary I’ve ever encountered – he taught me how to pronounce ‘desultory’ and he’s the only person I’ve ever heard use ‘excrescence’ in casual conversation – now he gropes even for simple nouns. You know,” Annie introduced, “I think the end of our friendship was connected to his slide.”

“What happened?”

“The last time we were in Santa Fe, he complained several times that he was misplacing his words. It seemed to the rest of us like normal middle-aged slippage, although I’ll admit I was struck when he lost ‘usher.’ For a well-educated highly articulate patron of opera and symphonies, there was something disturbing about the moment when his face flooded with confusion and he stammered out ‘you know, the person who seats you.’

“Anyway, the next day we were driving somewhere and got lost. Philip attempted to use his new phone to find our way or even a phone number, made mistakes, and ran out of patience. I tried to assist a few times but when he grew snappish I said ‘fuck yourself.’ That was it. He tightened up, I didn’t apologize, he didn’t forgive, and he then degenerated so rapidly there was no room for reconciliation. I’d get news about him occasionally, even saw him a few times, like just now, but our old intimacy was dead. He’s not doing well. He’s losing his mental faculties, but he lost language first. Acute progressive aphasia was the Mayo Clinic’s diagnosis. His sister and friends have moved him into a care facility, for the rest of his life. What we just experienced was surely an outing, arranged by good old George.”

Annie thinks Philip brought some of his illness on himself. She theorizes that if he’d been looser, more flexible, more active – if he would have just learned to laugh or sneeze without inhibition – if he weren’t so damned tight and self-protective and controlled, then he wouldn’t be degenerating yet. He always disdained her recommendations; he wouldn’t even try crossword puzzles, or writing poetry. She thinks he let some important parts of him atrophy. She told Karen about him partly to keep the conversation going but also in hopes that she’d learn something about her own cause and effect. But Karen wasn’t connecting stories. She acted semi-attentive and soft and sad and grateful and like she didn’t have a clue that her own decisions caused her present condition.

They refused the dessert stamp and left the bistro soon after. Karen insisted on paying the tab because she’d initiated the get-together. Annie would have rather split the bill, so she wouldn’t have to feel she owed Karen a followup meal, but Karen wasn’t having any of Annie’s cash or credit card. They walked, slowly, back to Karen’s SUV and drove, slowly, back across town to Annie’s place. Then Karen went on to her apartment and Annie walked inside and smoked.

Annie won’t have to reciprocate. She’s going to experience one of those interruptive life changes. She’ll soon see her dentist about the bump that has developed on the right side of her tongue, and that visit will start her on the nightmare cascade of oral cancer.

She will become a bit disfigured. The quality of her speech will change. It won’t be accurate to describe her as a kinder or gentler or humbler person. But among the other new skills she’ll learn, Annie will develop an ability to turn the critical and causal glass on herself.