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matter how trivial the topic of conversation: the point is to cough up enough minor encounters, frustrating incidents, funny anecdotes or potentially useful bits of information to distract the buddy from the task at hand. Mr. Simms, Karen’s boss, has been invaluable in this regard. His unpredictable behaviour has sustained Maxine and Karen through miles of drizzle and wind and a general disinclination to keep flattening the gravel. Mr. Simms is a loose cannon. He is all warmth and concern one minute, claws out the next. He says he will do things and then forgets; then he demands to know why they haven’t been done yet. He can’t believe no one has prepared that mini-budget. The one he himself said he would prepare at the last boardmeeting. It’s in the minutes. You saucy thing, he said to Karen, when she pointed to item 4(g). Karen conveys the extent of his outrage while they twist down small streets to the tennis courts and the trail to the lake.
    As an added benefit to these kinds of conversations, every now and then one receives useful advice from the other, follows up, and resolves a difficulty—medical, culinary, interpersonal, or other— successfully. This is beside the point but it’s definitely a plus. Maxine has followed Karen (and her partner Theresa, mostly in absentia, since Theresa doesn’t run) through their purchase of a house and adoption of a daughter, has discovered how to roast cherry tomatoes, has come to learn about Karen, about Theresa, about little Chloe, about bringing your electrical up to code. Karen has gone from an acquaintance in the women’s running group to someone whose life is not just known to Maxine but actually part of Maxine’s. And, although Maxine can’t imagine what she could possibly have been saying for the last year or so, the reverse is probably also true.
    After the seminar, Maxine tosses her brown satchel into the hall and bends down for the envelope she’s just stepped over, which is lying on the floor near the mail slot. It’s one of those expensive ones with the raggedy edges that is handmade or is made to look handmade, and as Maxine opens the plain, elegant card, she wonders who sent it. Maxine reads the card—Barb, inviting her for supper on Sunday. Alas. She locates the cordless, stretches out on the couch, and calls Gail, who, it turns out, has pulled off a highly successful last-minute office luncheon—not a lunch, Max, a luncheon—for forty people, stepping into the breach last night, when the other caterer was hospitalized.
    My god. You mean Emerg, or did they admit her?
    Max, you’re missing the point here.
    The point is that a number of guests asked for Gail’s card and whether she did hors d’oeuvres, and Gail is expecting to hear from them about Christmas parties within a day or two. She rewarded herself with a new and rather pricey vermilion lipstick she’s dying to escort downtown. But not tonight, as she needs to recover from the luncheon. Gail was up puréeing soup at dawn, to her attached neighbours’ annoyance, and she’s zombified. A night out on the weekend? Excellent. And Maxine no doubt met Craig at the writing seminar. How was that? Maxine must call Craig. Just for a follow-up coffee, no big deal.
    I am totally not calling him. Forget it.
    Don’t be so narrow-minded. Nan adores him.
    She can ask him out then. Maxine can feel that she has cocked her head with the snotty, ironic expression Gail accuses her of acquiring when she digs in her heels about something.
    There’s no need to be snotty about Nan.
    I love your Nan. I’m saying she can make her own decisions.
    Oh and I’m holding a gun to your head here. I mean, you have a perfect opportunity to get to know a guy. For once. Because god knows one is not going to plop down out of your ceiling and land on the keyboard. But. For reasons invisible to the naked eye— OK Gail, he might be your cousin