“You won't have to. They'll catch on right away."

“Don't say that! That's what I'm afraid of.”

“Then don't call her middle-aged. She's our age.”

Jane suddenly felt a wave of sympathetic understanding for the little girl who had tied up traffic and was now sitting, screaming, and kicking her heels on the floor. It was just what Jane wanted to do herself.

Three

Somebody picked up the screaming child, cut ting off its wails. The crowd surged forward. "Jane! Darling Jane!" Phyllis cried, dragging the young man behind her as she fought through the people blocking her. Jane found herself being embraced, her nose tickled by mink and Phyllis's scent—that of very new hundred-dollar bills dipped in Giorgio. One of Phyllis's plastic bags was caught between them, and Jane was being gouged by something that felt like a knitting needle.

“You haven't changed a bit!" Phyllis said, holding Jane by both arms and studying her.

“You have," Jane blurted out, not sure whether to be flattered or insulted by Phyllis's remark. Jane had hoped that maturity would have improved her.

“No, I haven't," Phyllis said. "It's just my teeth. Chet insisted on having all these porcelain things done to them. He thought it mattered to me, the darling. So I let him think so. It made him happy."

“Phyllis—" It was hard to call her that. Jane wondered how this expensively dressed individ‑ ual could be the same woman she'd once known. "I'm sorry that Chet didn't come along. How is he?”

At that, Phyllis's eyes began to fill, and her chin trembled almost imperceptibly. "He's just fine, Jane. We just needed some time apart." She sniffed, paused a moment to get a grip on herself.

And in that moment, with her chin shaking with incipient tears, the woman before her became the old Phyllis—poor little insecure Phyllis who'd spent her days befriending the old people in the apartment building and making Christmas ornaments.