Someone had recognized the man sitting at the table next to Sylvia and Marg. They both looked toward the table as greetings were made in loud, excited voices. Sylvia was grateful for the distraction.
“Bob! You’re still here! What have you been up to? Still working? You’re not still working?” The standing man’s shoulders were damp with melting snow, a white peak clinging to the top of his cap like a misshapen pom-pom.
The woman at the table looked up and Sylvia realized that she was older than she had thought, perhaps in her early forties. And so probably not a student after all. Sylvia saw something pass between the woman and the man who’d arrived, a blade of recognition that neither wanted to fully acknowledge.
Bob said something. The standing man pointed to his hearing aid.
“Have you written any new books? You always have a new book.”
“Hardly.” Bob spoke louder now. “One every ten years.” He was smiling at the man, indulgently or genuinely, Sylvia couldn’t tell.
“So they haven’t let you go yet?” the standing man said, joking.
Marg turned to Sylvia. “That’s Bob McIntyre. Do you know him? He used to do those public lectures. Philosophy for Us. Whoever the ‘us’ is. Sort of like Toys R Us, I thought.” She laughed. “The university’s effort to keep up. With what, I don’t know.”
The conversation continued at the other table, animated on one side and subdued or bemused on the other. A steady buzz that was hard to ignore.
“And the woman?” Sylvia asked.
“No idea. Some affair probably. He’s Catholic, you know. A believer. But more than one of his students has confided in me about how he pursued them, coffee, drinks, long talks. You know. In the old days. I don’t hear so much about it anymore. The new harassment climate. He has to be more careful. And there’s his wife. Sick with something, frail.” Marg hesitated. “You said you wanted to tell me something.”
Did she know? The comment about Bob’s wife. Sylvia wondered, just for a second, if Hugh might have talked to Marg already.
“Hugh’s got colon cancer.” Best to come right out with it, she thought, and then immediately regretted her blunt announcement. Marg sucked her breath in, leaned back.
“But....”
“I know. We were told he was fine. And then....”
Marg leaned toward Sylvia so that their faces were closer again and said in a low voice, “So tell me.” She adjusted—opened and then closed—one of her barrettes absentmindedly. “Tell me the details. What do they say?” Her stress on the “they” indicated her disdain for doctors, really the whole medical profession—she’d never been good with any of it. It was likely one of her early problems with Hugh.