That Friday, Margot sent him a text at ten past four.
*Casa Albuquerque. Tonight. 7:30. If you can't, don't tell me why. Just don't come.*
He wrote back in under a minute. *I'll be there.*
She looked at it for a while. Everyone said that. She knew that. She had said it to clients herself, a hundred times, meaning it about half.
She got to Wexley Street at ten past seven and stood across the road under the awning of a closed shoe repair shop, and through the blue-tiled window of the restaurant she could see him, already at a table by the wall, a glass of water in front of him he hadn't touched, in the grey-olive suit, the tie with the tiny anchors. He was turning his silver watch around and around on his wrist. He looked at the door every eleven seconds. She timed it.
She stood there for nine more minutes. Not to punish him. She had thought it might be that, and found it wasn't. She was simply making a list, the old way, of the risks. It was a long list. At the bottom of it, she wrote, in her head, in pen: *He came in early.*
Then she crossed the street.
"You're early," she said, sitting down.
"So are you." He looked at his watch, then back at her, as if he didn't trust it. "I've been here since six-fifteen. The waiter thinks I've been stood up. He's been bringing me bread out of pity."
"I haven't forgiven you," said Margot.
"I know."
"I might. Eventually. I'm not promising."
"I know."
"If you cancel on me by text again, ever, for anything short of a hospital—"
"I won't."
"Everybody says that."
"I know," said Wes. "So I'm not going to say it. I'm just going to keep being here early, and you can decide what it's worth."