The Last Lovely City by Alice Adams Page B

Saturday’s fine. Even better. Great! See you then.”
    Rack of lamb? Steak
au poivre?
Or were those too show-offy, obvious? Maybe just cracked crab and a salad? But that showed off nothing at all, no cooking. And then she thought, Dear God, it doesn’t matter. I’ll make something good. Whatever.
    But she spent the next week in elaborate fantasies of the possible evening with Simon. In which, sometimes, they went from passionate kissing at the door directly to bed, where things went well.
    So obsessed was she that she wondered, Have I fallen in love with Simon? At my age? Is that what this is all about?
    She noted that in her dreams several other men appeared whom she had not thought of for years. She dreamed of Jim and of Tommy, of poor dead Jason, of beautiful Silvio. And of several others.
    By the actual night on which the actual Simon came to her house for dinner, Lucretia was exhausted, emotionally, so drained that preparing the rack of lamb, God knows an easy dish, had taken great effort. Not to mention blow-drying her hair, brushing it.
    It was partly from fatigue, then, that later, in her pretty living room, a familiar and perfect backdrop for love, Lucretia found herself regarding Simon with the most terrible sadness. She was not in love with Simon, she really was not—although he was perfectly nice and in his way quite handsome, still, and interesting. It was simply that he reminded her of love. Some hint of all the men she had ever loved was in his aura, like a scent. One sniff of it and she thought, Ah, love!
    That knowledge, or insight, though sad, was relaxing to Lucretia, and she said, “I hope you won’t mind if we eat unfashionably early? I’m sort of tired.”
    “Not at all. It’s a terrible thing about age,” he said, with his attractive, crooked smile. “I find that I’m tired a lot.”
    “Oh, I am, too!” and she flashed her answering bright smile, as she thought, Oh good, I won’t have to pretend anymore. And I won’t even think about falling in love.
    But of course she did.

A V ery N ice D og
    A few weeks ago, somewhat against my better judgment, I went to a Sunday-lunch party in Sausalito, at which I was deeply bored by the guest of honor, an actor whom I had not especially wanted to meet, and at which I ate very little lunch. But where I met a very nice black dog, an aging Lab, slightly grizzled around the jaw, with large, kind, gentle, and hopeful dark-brown eyes. There he was, lying out in the sun in a corner of my friend Patrick’s deck, in the ravishingly beautiful and warm late-October sunlight.
    Patrick and I are old, old friends; a very long time ago we were undergraduates together, in Charlottesville, and now we like to say (sometimes we like it) that we are aging together, transported out here to California. I live by myself in San Francisco, and Patrick lives with his friend Oliver in the dark-shingled old Sausalito house, with its newly added cantilevered deck, and its stunning view of the bay and boats, and Alcatraz and Belvedere.
    Because of Oliver’s allergies they have no pets, although before Oliver entered his life Patrick had Burmese cats, and sometimes a handsome poodle as well. I have three cats. This new dog was not Patrick’s, then. “He lives across the street,”Oliver explained, when I asked, surprised at finding a dog there. That day Oliver was serving, since Patrick had chosen to cook, and they both seemed a little harassed by this change of roles, Oliver being the better and more usual cook. They had little patience for pet conversations—at first.
    Patrick is an architect, talented and energetic when he has a project going, depressed when he does not. Genuinely witty, often kind, and sometimes mean, he retains friendships with many old clients. And makes new ones: he had just done a house for this actor, Tom Something, in the Napa Valley. He truly loves his friends, all of them, although he is capable of some manipulation, a little mischief. On the