High Noon and Shane. About a year later someone mentions a film like that and gives the title and he sees it at an art movie house and either she gave a different name for the credits and he didn’t recognize her in it or this one wasn’t it. He next sees her in a photography magazine. A friend shows him the full-page photo. Very high-fashion pose, and she’s holding a smoking cigarette, though she never smoked when he knew her. Buys the magazine at a stand, though it’s very expensive, cuts the page out and puts it in a book he’s reading, and every now and then at school and work, takes it out to look at. Guy sitting next to him in the department store employees’ cafeteria says “Who’s the chick — some new actress? Never saw her before.” “You want to hear something crazy? I used to go out with this piece of ass.” “Yeah, me too, me too, was even married to her once.” “No, it’s the god’s honest truth. Gwendolyn Wakesman. I even know her middle name, which it doesn’t give here: Cora. Year and a half younger than I. When we were in high school, though she went to a fancy private and I to a junky public. And we were in love, or maybe I was more with her than she was with me, and I was the first to ball her also, and her second, third, fourth, all the way to maybe her fiftieth.” “You’re full of it,” the guy says. “Knew you wouldn’t believe it. Only thing wrong with her was that her calves were too fat and she smoked. I can’t stand smoking. I get these physiological reactions to it — sneezing, trouble breathing, besides getting irritated; that’s why I’m sitting in the corner here, away from all those chimneys around us. And she smoked those smelly French cigarettes — she was kind of a phony also but not enough of one for me not to go out with someone so beautiful and to say no to screwing her, and I was sure that part of her personality would go away with age. Anyway, it was because of that smoking that I broke up with her. What a schmuck I was.” “Good story, but I think you’re still full of it.” “What can I say that I haven’t already? Kill me for it.” Next sees her in the Metropolitan Museum. He’s going up the big flight of stairs, she’s coming down. “Gwen?” he says, for a moment, because of her shorter differently styled hair, not sure. “Well, hi, how are you? My, we always seem to meet in the more cultural places. But I have to run. See you at Carnegie Hall next, yes?” Watches her go. Body fuller, face as beautiful, still the same perfume smell and artistic clothes. Maybe if it was just lunch she was going to he should have said “Want to go to the cafeteria here?” Follows her downstairs but at a distance of about a hundred feet. If she turns and sees him he’ll say “Sorry, didn’t want you to think I was following you, which is why I kept at such a distance, but I realized I originally came here to see the Greek collection.” She leaves the museum. He watches her hurry down the steps, hail a cab. Next sees her at Rockefeller Plaza. He’s sitting on one of the long concrete planters, reading, waiting for Janine, when someone says “Howard.” Looks up. “Oh my God. Gwen, Jesus, howaya, what’s going on uh…” “You look great, Howard; different, natty, all the rage, and your face; blooming.” “Not me, but—” “No, life’s got to be going smooth for you. What have you been up to?” and he says “Nothing unusual, as usual. Actually, things are going OK, thank you. Job, personal life.” “You just plunk down here to read on this gorgeous day or are you waiting for someone? For if you’re not doing anything too important, we can talk while you walk me to Fifty-seventh Street where I’ve an appointment.” “I’d love to but I am waiting for someone. My fiancée, as a matter of fact. I’m on my lunch hour. My job starts at noon, so it might sound peculiar saying lunch hour at four or so, but I’m a newsman.” “So. Good luck then, in everything. I’m sure we’ll bump into each other again, and my best to your fiancée.” She puts out her cheek and he kisses it. “Before you go,” he says, “and I know it’s almost a mandatory question, or at least from one of the parties, when two people from the past meet after a few years, but you see any of the old people we knew?” “Who might they be? We didn’t know anyone mutually, did we?” “Robin Richards? … The fellow who used to say “The nose knows’? He had an unusually long nose, which now probably people look at as handsome, but he always had lots of gossip and social information to give out, so he made fun of himself with the nose line.” She’s still shaking her head. “I thought he crossed both our crowds. He went to Trinity. Then Ellen Levin? I didn’t know her that well, really not at all, but I certainly remember her.” “Her name’s not familiar either,” and he says “Ellen Levin, or Levine, or Levine,” pronouncing it the other way. She was your best friend at school, I thought. Tall, pretty, bouncy blonde. Father had a hamper factory.” “No,” she says. “Then Helen? Evelyn? I don’t think ‘Eleanor.’ Because I remember first talking to her at your school dance, night I first met you, and then she introduced us, or you just came over and introductions were made all around, because she thought we’d get along or saw I was mainly interested in you and not her.” “Is that where we first met? I thought it was after a movie.” “No. And maybe I got her last name wrong, but I’m sure her first name was something like Helen or Ellen.” “I’ve never known a Helen or Ellen.” “Everyone in New York’s known an Ellen.” “Then in high school or college. And I did always think we met after a movie. I still do. I even know what movie.