It was really quite unspectacular. Three men in new ground-crew uniforms of the RCAF with their three girls at the next table. One of the RCAF men making a few of the tired, overstandardized, overfamiliar, overstale, and overstupid remarks. Haig listening carefully for bad language, the point of no return. Hearing none and searching across the table for Barbara’s eyes, trying to catch her with the amused superior smile they’d exchanged in similar situations before. Barbara studying the menu. The loudest of the airmen underlining his next observation with the word “sonofabitch.” Haig walking over and saying with careless hauteur, an inspired mixture of Cyrano and Silver Fizz, “Look, it’s not so much what you say, which is a matter of indifference to me. It’s the way you say it, which is off
