Both women turned toward me.
Eleanor narrowed her eyes.
“Are you laughing at me, young man?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Liar. You’re smiling.”
“I was laughing at the crossword writer.”
“Good answer. Sit down.”
That was how our friendship began.
She was seventy years old, and her cancer had reached its final stages. Yet she possessed a sharp tongue, a wicked sense of humor, and a remarkable talent for making everyone around her forget that she was sick.
Her hair had turned silver decades earlier, but she wore it beautifully. She liked bright scarves, strong tea, old novels, and chocolate biscuits she claimed tasted better when stolen from someone else’s plate.
Whenever I brought her a book, she inspected it as though I were presenting evidence in court.
“No romance novels,” she warned me one afternoon.
“Why not?”
“Because they give people unrealistic expectations.”
“You’ve never been in love?”
She looked at me over her glasses.
