On his third lap, in front of Foot Locker, near J.C. Penney, on a grey Tuesday morning, he met Faye Perelman, the furrier's wife, who used to play cards with Miriam, Kuperman's wife. She was with another woman, petite, with red hair, whom she introduced as Judith Neeley. Faye asked Kuperman how things were with him, said that her and her husband's health was good, they had a lot to be thankful for, and mentioned that Judith, who lost her husband last year, lived on the same floor as the Perelmans, two buildings down from Kuperman's own building at Winston Towers. 

"Judy taught high school," Faye said. "She was a music teacher at New Trier." 

"That's nice," said Kuperman, not listening very intently.

"Interested in music, are you, Mr Kuperman?" Mrs Neeley said, showing a bright and winning smile.

"Well, not all that much, maybe," he answered, and even here he was lying, for Kuperman went to no concerts, kept no phonograph, and listened exclusively to the news on his car radio. He had vaguely heard of something called CDs, but had not actually seen one. When Miriam was alive, she dragged him to musical comedies. And though he went along, he didn't quite see the point of sitting uncomfortably in a seat at the Schubert Theatre, on Monroe, while young men and women, with great expenditures of false energy, were belting out the lyrics to Pajama Game and other such nonsense. He vaguely recalled the line, "Seven-and-a-half cents doesn't buy a heck of a lot..." Pure Narrishkeit, nonsense.

"Without music," she said, "life for me wouldn't have much point."

"Really?" Kuperman asked. 

"Absolutely," she said. 

Kuperman looked at his watch. Faye Perelman remarked that they had better keep moving. Judith Neeley put out her hand, which Kuperman shook before heading off in the other direction. 

Driving down to his warehouse, on Ashland Avenue near Belmont, Kuperman thought about Mrs Neeley. Not a Jewish name, Neeley. Irish, he thought. Of course, Neeley was her married name. Handsome woman, though, looked to be in her late sixties. He liked her manner; there was a note of seriousness about her he found appealing. 

Kuperman had been a widower for a little more than four years. His wife had had liver cancer, and lived three years before it finally swept her away. As a husband, he was a good provider, but the fact was that his life was never concentrated in his marriage. He was most alive at his business. He loved his wife, or thought he did. But did he miss Miriam? At first, yes, a lot, but by now days, whole weeks, went by when he didn't think about her. His best guess was that, had he died first, he would not have been constantly in her thoughts, either. We forget the dead and the living forget us when we die. That was all right, that was the deal, that was the way the world worked.