This happened fifteen years ago. She flew in from Vancouver and stayed with me over night, then continued on to Toronto the next day. I was living in Winnipeg at the time. My apartment wasn’t far from Osborne Street, so at dinnertime we walked the few blocks to the bridge, crossed the river, and found a café just beyond the Country Style Donut Shop I went to every Saturday morning for coffee with double cream, one sugar. They used 18 percent cream, that’s why their coffee was so good. It was still blowing snow when we set out and by the time we reached the café we were frozen stiff. The café was on the second floor of a boutique of some sort and we sat at a tiny table beside a window, looking at each other and down at the snowy street. My friend talked non-stop. (I may be intense, the odd person has told me I am, but I don’t hold a candle to Bev.) Why do you like her? a friend asked me once. If I had been honest I would have said, because she likes me. I suspect I said that she was lively and loyal, and those things were true too.
