Marie arrived early.

She frequented the restaurant where they were to meet. The hostess, Pat, noticed right away that Marie was dressed up and wearing lipstick.

“Do you have a date?” Pat asked.

“No. Not really... Possibly. We’ll see.”

“Do I know him?”

“Definitely not,” Marie said, “He’s not from around here.”

Pat picked up the menus and pointed towards the back of the room and said, “I’ll put you two in the corner, so you can talk.”

“Thank you.”

“Have you met this guy before?”

“Yeah, we dated for a year and a half, many moons ago,” Marie said.

Pat began to sing, “Reunited”.

Marie flushed, and said, “I didn’t know you could sing!”

Pat said, “I’ll sing at your wedding, for free.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

The table had a great view of the frozen lake. Atop the ice there were several little huts and some tents: ice fishers. It was an unseasonably warm day for December; it might have been thirty five degrees. Marie wondered if the fishermen ever misjudged what the ice could support, and fell down into the frigid water and drowned. Did they die immediately? Or did they have a few last seconds of sentience, in which they could regret their risk-taking?

She caught sight of herself, reflected in the window.

She was not in the habit of looking at herself critically.

She saw that she was old. Still pretty, still slim, but there were deep lines by her mouth, and around her eyes. Her once round cheeks had sunk in. Her neck looked slack. Her hands had grown claw-like, and her knuckles protruded. Her hair looked dry.

Time had not been kind. And he had not seen her since she was twenty-one, and at the height of her beauty.

He would certainly be disappointed, she thought.

But, she reminded herself, looks aren’t everything. And she was a much more interesting person that she had been at twenty-one. She had written many songs, and the score of a musical. She was a much better pianist now. She was a mother, and a grandmother. She had a master’s degree. There was no earthly reason why she ought to feel afraid of being judged, and found lacking.

What she wanted was for him to regret that he had not been with her all these years.

The door of the restaurant swung open and a blast of cold air swept across the room and chilled her face. A man, bundled up in winter clothes, stepped inside, stomping the snow off his boots. Initially, she wasn’t sure if it was Herrick. But then he pushed back the hood of his coat, and it was him.

A rush of emotion made her momentarily weak. How she’d missed his face!

The years had altered him,too. He walked carefully, as though he’d repeatedly injured his back. He had a bit of a gut. Though he still had an impressive mane of hair, it was white now, and his hairline receded at the temples. And his blue eyes were red-rimmed and tired.

But he was still the most attractive man she’d ever seen.

She was ashamed of the desire she felt towards him. She scolded herself, silently:

Remember that he married somebody else. Remember that he’s done without you for thirty years. Don’t lose your head. Don’t embarrass yourself. Have some pride.

“Marie!” he exclaimed.

She got up, feeling breathless, and walked towards him. He rushed towards her and grabbed her into an embrace. He held her like he used to, with her face pressed next to his heart, his chin on top of her crown. He stroked her hair and repeatedly kissed her forehead. She felt perfectly content with his arms around her. There was no where in the world she would rather be.

When eventually he let go, they sat down on opposite sides of the table.

Pat brought over a basket of buttered garlic bread.

"And who is this?" Pat asked Marie.

"Pat, this is Herrick," Marie said.

Herrick said, "How are you?"

Pat said, "Don't I know you from somewhere? You look really familiar."

"I've got one of those faces," Herrick said.

Herrick's band had had one successful album in 1990. They'd gotten lots of publicity and radio airplay. Pat was a woman of years, and she probably remembered Herrick's face because it had been almost inescapable for a short while.

Pat took their drink order and disappeared into the kitchen, no doubt to gossip with the cook about Marie's date.

A sudden shyness seized Marie. She pretended to be engrossed in the menu. She knew that she ought to say something, but couldn’t find words. She reminded herself that they had once been the closest of friends, that they used to talk for hours. But even though he looked like himself, he was a stranger.

Herrick said, "So do you live here all year round?"

"Yes. My great-aunt left me her camp."

Herrick raised his eyebrows.

"Is it on Fourth Lake?"

The camps on Fourth Lake were sprawling, luxurious. They sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"Fifth Lake. It's a tiny little cabin. Low ceilings. You'd have to duck your head to walk through the door."

"A hobbit house?"

Years ago, he had sometimes called her a hobbit, because at 5'2", she was a foot shorter than him. Plus, at the time, she was in the habit of wearing a velvet cape.

"It suits my purposes."

"Do you live alone?"

"I do."

"Do you like living alone?"

"Yes."

The minute the words escaped from her mouth, she realized they weren't true. She was lonely. She often wished for company.

"My daughter visits frequently. My next door neighbor stops in for coffee most evenings. I've got friends. I'm not a hermit."

He nodded, and said, "I could never live alone. I was alone in the house for about two months after my wife left me. I started bringing home strange women and making friends with just random passersby. My daughter finally intervened. She told me I had to come and live with her, because I couldn't be left unsupervised."

She smiled, to hide her discomfort. She felt like he was revealing too much about himself, considering how long they'd been estranged. She wondered if he'd been drinking, because his filter wasn't operating.

"I wasn't around much when she was a baby, because that's right when the band got popular. But she asked me to mind my grandson during the week so she can go to work. I don't know what made her think I'm qualified to babysit! I'd never even changed a diaper! But it's such an amazing experience. Babies learn so much from one day to the next. This past week, he started grabbing mashed potatoes off my plate and feeding himself. He's never had solid food before - he just figured it out, I guess from watching me eat!"

"That's awesome."

"Did you have your daughter when she was a baby?"

"No," she said, "She lived with my sister until she was two. I missed out on her babyhood."

"That's too bad."

"Yeah," she said. She wasn't going to talk about her daughter's traumatic early life with Herrick. She felt protective of her privacy. In her opinion, he was pushing too hard to re-establish a closeness. He had a lot of nerve, imagining he could walk back into her life and talk to her like they were still friends.

He missed my wedding, my divorce, my daughter's entire existence, everything that matters, she thought.

She turned her head and looked out the window, just in time to see an ice fisher reel in a furious, writhing perch. She felt sorry for the fish. It probably had not been on its guard. It had probably thought that it was safe in the winter. But you could never be too careful.

When she glanced back at him, he was looking at her, with a grave look upon his face.

"I'm having a hard time believing that you're real," he said, "I've been thinking about this moment for a long time. I always thought that we'd see each other again, or rather, I hoped we would. Did you ever think about me, all these years we've been apart?"

"Of course," she said.

"Did you think, "I hate that fucker"?

"No," Marie said, "I stopped being angry a long time ago."

"I am sorry," he said, "I know that it's my fault we broke up. I don't know what the hell I was thinking, cheating on you. I guess I just figured I wouldn't get caught. I was a fucking idiot. I always assumed you and I would get married and have kids and be together for the rest of our lives. But I fucked that up pretty good."

"I sometimes wish that I had just...not left. I could have handled it some other way."

"I always hoped you'd call," he said.

"I wish I had," Marie said, "If we had been in contact, I think the really difficult parts of my life would have been easier."

"I never called," Herrick said, "because I wanted to be a good husband to my wife. I really, really tried to make it work."

"Why didn't it?"

Herrick frowned and looked into his coffee cup. His brow furrowed as he composed a reply.

Finally he said, "We weren't compatible. I can't say I didn't love her. I did. It was just a minor love. For a long time I thought that I could convert it into a major love. I thought that, if we shared enough experiences, our love would get deeper. But it didn't. And she knew that I wasn't as interested in her as I should have been. She used to say to me all the time, "What do I have to do to get your full attention?" And I felt really bad about making her feel inadequate. But there was nothing she could do. She didn't know anything I didn't know. She didn't see anything from an interesting perspective. She didn't have any weird passions or compulsions. She never understood why I was driven to create. She was ...ordinary. Basic. I could predict every word that ever came out of her mouth."

Marie wondered if everything he'd said, about them not being compatible, about their love being "minor" was true, or if it was just his wounded ego talking.

Pat brought their drinks and placed them on the table. Marie wondered if she'd overheard their conversation. She didn't want everyone in town knowing her business. She hoped that Pat would keep her mouth shut - but she didn't expect it.

They ordered food, though Marie's stomach hurt and she doubted she'd be able to eat anything.

When she returned her attention to Herrick, he was looking at her, intently. As though she was someone to him.

"Herrick," she said, "You are somewhat famous."

"Was," he corrected her.

"You are probably solvent. You still have hair. Why not get yourself a pretty, young girlfriend? Somebody you've never cheated on? Someone you've never hurt? I'll never really be able to trust you again. And if you're here out of some sense of guilt...I absolve you. You're not obliged to make up for past wrongs."

"In my experience, Marie, people don't really change. You are probably still somebody I could love."

But Marie didn't know if she was still capable of romantic love.