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"I knohat you thought," she said, "because what else could you think? But now’s not the tiht the sa will it take you to get out here?"
"Flagstaff, Arizona?"
"How did -- oh, the area code Well, not Flagstaff, but that’s close enough Flagstaff’s got an airport, but it ht be easier to fly to Phoenix and drive up Or for all I know you’re close enough to drive the whole way Where are you, anyway?"
In for a penny, in for a pound "New Orleans," he said, "but as far as coet away"
"You’re all right, aren’t you? Not under lock and key, for God’s sake"
"No, nothing like that, but it’s complicated"
"Oh? In that case I’ll co to stop et out of Give ht back to you… Keller? Where’d you go?"
"I’m here"
"So?"
"I just got this phone," he said, "and there’s got to be a card somewhere with the number on it, but I don’t knohat happened to it"
"That’s the last word in unlisted numbers," Dot said, "where even the owner hiet too cocky, because so to call you on it and try to sell you Viagra Here’s e’ll do You callin and where I’ And don’t worry if you can’t find my number Just press the Redial button and that clever little phone of yours will do the rest"
An hour later he learned that she wouldn’t be coht he’d wait a day or two to figure out what to tell Julia He drove home and Julia met him in front of the house She said the weather forecast was for rain but it didn’t feel like rain, and what did he think? He said he couldn’t really say one way or the other She said neither could she, not really, and was there so on his mind?
"Dot’s alive," he said
The weather forecast turned out to be on theon and off for the next three days It never reached downpour proportions, but it never quite cleared up, either, and he had to use the windshield wipers driving don to Dot’s hotel
She had booked herself into the Intercontinental He brought his new cell phone along and called her after he’d turned his truck over to the valet, and she uests shared the elevator with theot off on her floor
"Not that those tould have noticed," she said "What do you figure, cheaters or honey attention"
"Neither were they, Keller, which was my point It doesn’t matter My God, look at you You look different, but I can’t put o The whole shape of your face is different What did you do?"
"Cut it differently, raised the hairline Lightened it a little"
"And glasses Those aren’t bifocals, are they?"
"They took a little getting used to"
"They’re takingtheh Very studious"
"I see better," he said "But you, Dot, you look way different"
"Well, I’m older than I used to be, Keller What do you expect?"
But she didn’t look older, she looked younger Her hair had been dark years ago, when they first met, and by the time he’d left for Des Moines there was far one -- it was easier, as he well knew, to turn gray hair dark than to reverse the process -- and along with the gray she’d lost twenty or thirty pounds The pants suit she earing, a far cry froure, and she earing lipstick and eye ot a personal trainer," she said, "if you can get your irl who doesto lie in the sun like a beached whale and sit up nights with a box of soft-center chocolates, and will you look what happened to me?"
"You look terrific, Dot"
"So do you What did you do, take up golf or so in the shoulders"
"It’s probably froarrote’s quieter," she said, "but I don’t suppose it does as much in terms of muscular develop pitchers of iced tea and two glasses, then hung up the phone and looked at hi up to do, haven’t we?"
He went first, starting with their last conversation in Des Moines and bringing her all the way to his new life in New Orleans She listened carefully, interrupting now and then for a her head "You were going to retire," she said, "and here you are doingat first," he said, "but it’s not that hard to pick up"
"It shouldn’t be Look at all the ," he said "Especially hat you’re doing is taking so it out"
"You’ve been doing that for years, Keller Though I can’t recall you ever using a paint roller before But tell me more about this lady friend of yours"
He shook his head "Your turn," he said