As the date approaches, Louise swings between anticipation and dread. On the appointed day, she catches the 32 Bus, headed from the suburb of North Montreal toward the Metro. Mid-morning shoppers and overslept students gaze dully as the world passes by the windows. The bus rumbles along Lacordaire Boulevard, until it screeches to a halt at the light beside a building where she used to work in the days of faxes and photocopies. The days of pantyhose and pussy-bow blouses, skirt suits and kitten heels. The dress code said no bare legs, no visible bra straps. No skirts more than an inch above the knee. The days when your boss could pat your ass with impunity. On weekends, she and Francine would put on acid-wash jeans and prowl Rue Sainte-Catherine for discount fashions. Blisters oozing on their gel shoes, they’d come home, laden with water buffalo sandals, crewel-stitched peasant blouses, and colorful Indian skirts hand-embroidered with dime-sized mirrors. All completely unfit for the office. A sign she had ignored. The first summer, they had sublet apartments in the student ghetto, and months later carted their futons to other, nicer areas. The anglophone enclaves were being emptied out as the multinationals moved their head offices away. The futon was uncomfortable because she had severe period pain until she found, through the grapevine, a doctor who would prescribe the pill to unmarried women.

Everyone piles out of the bus at Cadillac Station, named after the explorer, not the car. The bus driver, too, stops for a break at the nearest café, where Louise orders a latte from a tall, broad-shouldered woman who looks like she spent an hour on her makeup. Back in her day, Louise daubed sparkly cornflower blue on her eyelids and put a smidge of lip-gloss on her mouth. That was the height of her makeup routine. But then there was the hair. For an hour each morning, she would struggle with the curling iron, trying to make limp, stringy hair look like bold, bouncy curls. The tall barista thrusts a payment device at Louise, who fumbles to pay, and the barista rolls her eyes.

The coffee cup warming her hand, Louise enters Cadillac Station behind a tough-looking guy who helps a young mom lift a stroller. The baby is babbling happily, slapping the padded rollbar of the stroller. Beside Louise is an uptight woman wrestling to keep a package of two dozen toilet paper rolls hidden inside a flimsy bag. Don’t bother, Louise wants to say. On the Metro, most people stare at their phones, collectively giving privacy to each other. But not the baby, whose gray limpid eyes scrutinize nearby adults with supernatural curiosity.

Louise gets out early so she can walk by Maisonneuve’s statue, which stands in Place d’Armes, across from the basilica. She finds a trash bin for her cup and strolls along an old haunt. She pokes her nose into one tiny, upscale bistro where she marvels at the original acrylic gouache artwork, the mirror panels, and the wrought-iron chairs. She and Francine used to hang out there, back when it was a greasy spoon and the only things hung on walls were autographed hockey photos. All-day breakfast special, three eggs with toast and steaming hot hash browns.

Louise enters the steakhouse where she will meet Francine. High-end meetings between wheeler dealers occur here, or so she’s heard. Everything is toned-down, high quality: dark wood, thick damask, and hand-polished silverware. The ceiling consists of large, recessed white squares, a regimented heaven; immense lights hang like chandeliers except covered with silk fringe instead of crystal beads. Louise multitasks during the conversation, plying Francine with mischievous questions about her scintillating career in finance while experiencing flashes of total recall. She misses the old days of doing things together: window shopping, painting accent walls, even sharing the same boyfriend. Under the influence of a smoky Zinfandel, she teases Francine about the fun of ordering people around, admires the cut of her pantsuit, and deflects questions about her own career doldrums. She picks at her arugula and fennel salad. And yet there is a moment where she feels close to rekindling that old bond. A moment, laughing, where they pause and study each other’s faces, lit up with rediscovered joy. Then Francine’s phone buzzes. “Oh crap, gotta get to my one o’clock.” Louise insists on splitting the bill, “going Dutch, like old times.” When Francine asks the waiter to snap a pic, Louise throws an arm around her old friend, and they lean back, light glinting off their toothpaste-ad smiles.

“This was so much fun. Let’s not wait two years again,” Francine gushes outside the steakhouse. It was actually four years, but who’s counting? Only Louise, with her silly, needy ways. She imagines the two of them in the future, rolling about in their mobility devices, bumping wheels on a patio. Francine’s well-muscled caregiver tucks the cashmere lap blanket around her legs while Louise, shivering, will still be picking away at her arugula salad. Maybe by then she will get up the nerve to tell Francine about that fling with her husband.

They hug each other in that careful way, as if each carries a Fabergé egg in her breast pocket. The vision of rolly-chairs vanishes, poof, as a momentary chill tells Louise this may be their final adieu. Francine climbs into an Uber, while Louise ignores her premonition and declines the offer of a lift. “Thanks, but I have to check out that new shoe emporium up the street,” she white-lies. A headache pinches her temples. Hunger or hungover?

A block away, she encounters a street vendor. She hesitates. Doesn’t she deserve more than arugula? Yelling above the roar of traffic, she orders poutine “with extra curds.” While the deep fryer sizzles, she watches a window washer washing a high rise of many square glass panels. The scene is all grays and shiny silvers except for the faraway window washer clad in a red vest, like one drop of blood sliding down a fractured mirror. He moves the squeegee like the infinity symbol, a figure 8 on its side, back and forth, back and forth as he descends. She pulls out her phone to snap a pic but can’t get close enough, so she steps from the sidewalk into the street. Down the block, a garbage truck grinds gears, picking up speed. The vendor cries, “Your order, Madame!” as he lifts the grease-stained cardboard cup. She freezes. Her eyes slide from the window washer to the food.

The roaring of the garbage truck bearing down on her is the last thing she hears.

The End