She said: Claire.
I said: it’s all right.
She said: it’s not personal.
I said: it’s all right.
I said: I’m going to go in.
She said: you can’t just.
I said: the state reunion board has regulations about exclusion from alumni events, Dana.
I said it calmly.
I said it the way I said most things, which was directly and without heat.
She stared at me.
I said: I’m not going to sue
you.
I said: I’m just going in to the reunion.
I said: and I’d like to pay for both of us at the door.
I put my card on the table.
Jennifer looked at Dana.
Dana looked at me.
I had spent twenty years building myself into someone who could stand in this hallway, which was a hotel ballroom entrance, and look at this person, which was Dana Howell at forty, and feel nothing but the specific clarity of a person who knows who they are.
