She gave me a wary look, as if I was going to ask her about the coughing. But I had decided not to. Son of a doctor who had made sure my brother and sister and I weren’t squeamish about the body and its troubles, I wasn’t one of those people who are afraid of catching a cold. Though I’d noticed that several such people were sitting near us.

Before Janet started to eat, she took out a plastic container with several compartments in it, placed six different pills on the tablecloth, and swallowed them with water. It was easy to see that she was waiting for me to ask about them but I didn’t ask because I wanted everything to be alright then. I wanted to be with a woman and have no trouble between us, no jealousy, or anything like that, no sickness. Even just for one night I wanted that. She opened her purse again and snapped it closed, and when I didn’t mention the pills, she started to eat.

I said, “When I get nervous or when something really upsets me, I make goofy jokes. I’ve been that way since I was a kid. I would like to officially start over.”

She nodded and looked up.

“What kind of a day did you have, really?”

She swallowed. “Awful.”

“Why?”

“I’d rather not say. It has to do with the person I work for.”

“Which is who?”

“Which is the governor. It was on my card.”

“Of Massachusetts?”

Another nod.

“The famous Charlie Valvoline?”

Nod number three, and some little squirrel of bad feeling skittering across her cheekbones. “He hates that nickname. Could we talk about something else?”

“Sure. You start.”

The scallops were excellent, and there was something intimate about sharing them that way, and about not knowing what kind of main course Richard was going to bring us.