He was there when she arrived.
Standing in the lobby, not near the bar, not on his phone. Just standing in the way she had come to recognize as him being where he was without performing it. He saw her come through the door and he did not move toward her immediately. He waited for her to cross the lobby, which she did at her own pace.
She looked at him.
He looked at her.
He said nothing about how she looked. She had been watching for this, the automatic compliment, the social reflex that would have arrived without thought from the man she had been married to. He did not say it.
"Thank you for coming," he said.
"Thank you for asking," she said.
They went in.
…
The house was full in the way opera houses were full, the specific warmth of a large space occupied by people in collective
