"This is my friend Don," said Lenore.

"Hello," he said. "Nice to meet you."

"You, too," Gabby said. She turned her attention back to Lenore. "See you at the bank on Saturday?"

"For sure."

Gabby took their drink orders. Lenore asked for a glass of white wine; Don ordered his old standby of Diet Coke. He was glad that the Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo had finally merged; he used to hate that little game of "Is Pepsi okay?" in places that had served only that brand.

"So," he said, after Gabby left, "you’re helping her rob a bank?"

Lenore looked a little embarrassed. "Food bank, actually. Gabby helps out there all the time. Me, I’m there most Saturdays." She paused, then, a bit awkwardly, as if she felt a need to offer some further justification: "Working in a restaurant, you see so much food go to waste, and yet people still go hungry."

He looked away, wondering how many — good Christ, how many millions of people could have been fed with the money that had been spent rejuvenating him.

Lenore was, as his answering machine had opined, a chatty sort, and he was mostly content to just listen to her ramble on; indeed, it was safer than him doing much talking. She had such an animated face, such a lively voice, that he could have listened to her for hours. Still, he made occasional efforts to keep up his end of the conversation. "So, you like Onderdonk," he said, indicating her T-shirt.

"Oh, they’re warp," she replied. He had no idea whether that was good or bad, and kept a poker face. "What about you?" continued Lenore. "What groups do you like?"

Oh, shit, thought Don. He’d set himself up for this. The bands of his youth — ELO, Wings, Supertramp, April Wine — would mean nothing to her, and, for the life of him, he couldn’t think of the name of any contemporary group. "I, um, ah…" And then, in a flash of brilliance, he pointed at the wall speaker, indicating the group that was playing now — not that he could name it, or the song.

But she nodded, impressed. "Hyperflower," she said. "Skytop." Don tried not to frown. One of those words was probably the name of the group; the other, a favorable reaction to his choice. If it had been her pointing at the speaker and oh, say, "Call Me" — a standard from his own university years — had been playing, he’d have identified the musician first, then added his assessment: "Blondie. Cool." So he assumed "Hyperflower" was the name of the band, and "skytop," a term of praise. Just like decoding an alien language, he thought. Sarah would be proud.

"Anybody else?" asked Lenore.

"Umm…" After a moment, in desperation, he said, "The Beatles."

"No way!" she squealed. "I love them! What’s your favorite song of theirs?"

" ‘Yesterday.’ "

She murmured appreciatively.

"It’s unusual," he said, "liking the Beatles these days." Although once he said it, he was afraid he might be wrong. For all he knew, the Fab Four could be enjoying a general resurgence of interest right now. When he’d been in university, there’d been a huge Bogart revival on campuses, and Bogey’s great films had been almost a half-century in the past, even then.

But she nodded enthusiastically. "For sure. Hardly anybody I know has even heard of them."

"How’d you get into them?"

She looked at him quizzically, and he thought that maybe he’d used a dated turn of phrase. But she must have sussed out its meaning because she said, "My grandfather had a collection of them."

Ouch.

She went on. "He used to play them for me whenever I came over as a kid. He had an antique stereo — that was his hobby — and a whole bunch of them on nylon."

It took him a moment to get it; she meant vinyl. But it wasn’t polite to correct people when they made innocent mistakes — his grandfather had taught him that.

Still, thought Don, there had to be something they could discuss that wouldn’t put him at such a disadvantage. Of course, they could have talked about the one person they both knew: Sarah. Isn’t that what most strangers do? But he couldn’t stand to hear another reference to his "grandmother."

Gabby returned with their drinks and took their food order. Don asked for something called "the blue steak salad" — sliced steak on garden greens with crumbled blue cheese. Lenore, who hadn’t had to even glance at the menu — working here, she presumably knew it by heart — ordered fish and chips.

Don loved debating politics, but usually avoided it with people he’d just met. But there was a provincial election looming here, and, since Lenore was from British Columbia, she likely didn’t have strong feelings about what was happening in Ontario; it was probably a safe topic. "So, who’d you like to see win on Friday?"

Don asked.

"I always vote NDP," she said.

That made him smile. He remembered his own socialist days as a student. Still, he was quite impressed with how much Lenore knew about the current scene. But, when history came up—

"Favorite prime minister? I guess I’d have to say Mulroney."

Don really got pissed off by the revisionist history that was popular these days.

"Listen," he said, "I remember when Brian Mulroney was prime minister, and he—"

He cut himself off when he saw her wide-eyed expression. "I mean," he quickly corrected, "I remember reading about when Brian Mulroney was prime minister, and he was even worse than Chretien when it came to being sleazy…"

Still, why was he leaving his true age a secret? It wasn’t as if he could keep it under wraps forever. People would eventually find out — including people at the astronomy department; Sarah was still in touch with several of them, and they had no pact to keep what had happened quiet. Besides, Lenore would probably be fascinated to hear all about his meeting with Cody McGavin, who, after all, was the patron saint of SETI these days. But whenever he contemplated the selective success of the treatment, the guilt cut him from within, like swallowed glass, and—

"Okay," said Lenore, "let’s see what you’re made of."

He stared at her, completely baffled, as she rummaged in her purse. After a moment, she pulled out her datacom and placed it on the table between them. She pressed a couple of keys, and it projected a holographic Scrabble board onto the wooden tabletop.

"Wow!" Don said. Although he had a nice collection of portable Scrabble boards — fold-up sets, magnetic sets, a set with self-stick vinyl tiles, dedicated electronic devices, even a miniature version that fit on a key chain — he’d never seen one this… this skytop.

"All right, Mr. Qoph," Lenore said. "Let’s play."

A spring evening in 2009. "Sweetheart, I’m home!" Sarah called out.

Don came out of the kitchen, crossed through the living room, and stood at the head of the six stairs leading down to the entry-way. "How’d it go?"

It was The First International Collaborative Session for Dealing with the Message from Sigma Draconis, a three-day marathon, hosted by the University of Toronto, chaired by Sarah herself, with SETI experts from all over the world having flown in to attend.

"Exhausting," said Sarah, sliding aside the mirrored closet door and hanging up her raincoat; April was Toronto’s wettest month. "Contentious. But ultimately worthwhile."

"I’m glad," he said. "I’ve got a pot roast in the oven, by the way. It should be ready in about twenty minutes."

The door to the house opened again and Carl came in, looking soaked and bedraggled. "Hey, Mom," he said. "How was the conference?"

"Good. I was just telling your father."

"Dinner in twenty minutes, Carl," Don said.

"Great. I’ll wash up." Carl managed to get his wet shoes off without bending over or undoing the laces. He didn’t take off his wet jacket, but just scooted up the stairs, slipping by Don as he did so.