It was a quarter of nine when each of us got done with our days, so we decided to go out for dinner. We walked up to the next block and went into Freestone’s. It was as empty as we’ve ever seen it: three or four couples finishing their dinners at the tables, and one man sitting at the bar reading. We sat down and ordered dinner. It came, we ate, and I saw one couple finish their dinner and leave. The bartender quickly realized that Carol and I were going to talk with each other, not with her, so she put dirty glasses in the dishwasher.

About then the regulars started to trickle in to the bar. First four women — all in their mid-twenties, all pretty, all with black hair — sat down at the bar. They all knew the bartender, and greeted her by name. A very quiet man came in, sat down next to us and a few seats away from the women; the bartender said, “Wild Turkey?”, he nodded, and sat in silence watching the basketball game on TV, sipping his whiskey. A young man with a beard came in; he knew the four women, and spent a few minutes standing next to each of them and talking. The man who was reading put down his book — he knew the four women, and the young man with the beard, and the other young man who walked in just about then. They all chatted happily back and forth.

We paid our check, and at last the bartender could ignore us; she went down to the other end of the bar and exchanged pleasantries with all the regulars. The very quiet man looked up, and the bartender immediately came over. “What’s that?” she said, “Oh, you’re changing the order on me tonight.” She poured him a beer, and he turned his attention back to the basketball game, not moving except for a twitch once in his temple, and his thumb running over the fingers in his other hand. Another quiet man sat behind us, carefully studying the sports pages of the Boston Globe. At the other end of the bar, the man who had been reading exchanged a desultory high-five with one of the women. Another man walked in to join the talkative group, and if I had tried I suppose I could have heard all their conversations. But I wasn’t really paying attention to them, I was just listening to Carol.

When we left, the young man with the beard and two of the women were standing outside Freestone’s smoking cigarettes and chatting in the icy wind.