Noah's Compass by Anne Tyler

from the window. “There!” Liam said. “Didn’t I tell you?” He was pleased, because in the dream there seemed to be some suspicion that he had made the intruder up.
    Then he woke, and for an instant he thought that the sound from the window had been real.
    His heart seemed to stop; he felt suddenly cold, although it was a warm night. But almost immediately, he understood that he had imagined it. The only sounds were the meep-meep of tree frogs, the neighbor’s TV, the distant rush of traffic on the Beltway. He was surprised that he’d felt such terror. Why should he be afraid? Everybody dies sometime. In fact he was almost waiting to d ie. But evidently his body had other ideas.
    His heartbeat returned to normal and the chill faded, and he was left with a feeling of disappointment. Wouldn’t you think that that flash of alarm could have jogged his memory?
    He had no idea when Cope Development opened for business each day, and so he drove downtown extra early—shortly after eight o’clock. A panel truck occupied the space where he’d parked the last time. He drew up directly behind it, in front of the Mission for Indigent Men. He cut the engine and rolled down his window and prepared himself for a wait.
    Within minutes, a woman approached from the other direction, hunting through a red tote as she walked. She brought forth a bunch of keys and climbed the front steps, unlocked the door, and disappeared inside. But no others followed. Maybe this woman was the office manager, or opener, or whatever the term was. The sidewalk remained empty. Liam began to feel deeply, maddeningly bored. His throat developed a hollow ache from holding back his yawns.
    His face grew sticky with perspiration.
    Then around nine o’clock, people started arriving—young men in suits, and women of all ages strolling in twos and threes, talking as they entered the building, laughing and nudging each other. Liam felt a pang of nostalgia for the easy camaraderie of people who worked together.
    A man in coveralls walked past Liam’s car, climbed into the parked panel truck, and drove away. Immediately afterward, as if by prearrangement, a dingy green Corolla pulled into the vacant space. A woman stepped out from the driver’s side: the rememberer. She was wearing another big, folksy skirt, or perhaps the same one, for all Liam knew, and her ringlets were wet-looking now from the heat. She circled behind her car, so close that he could hear the slogging sound of her sandals on the pavement. She opened the front passenger door, and Mr. Cope unfolded himself from his seat and stood upright. He had that old-person knack of remaining cool in sweltering weather. His hatchet face was dry and chalky; his high white collar and close-fitting suit were still crisp.
    The rememberer, on the other hand, looked rumpled and uncomfortable. Under the glaring sunlight she was not quite so young as Liam had first assumed. Nor did she seem so professional. She somehow got her purse strap entangled when she tried to close the car door, and as she was guiding Mr. Cope up the front steps she managed to trample on the hem of her own skirt. The elastic waist slid perilously low on one side; she yanked it up again and gave a quick glance around her, luckily not appearing to notice Liam in his car. Then she cupped a hand under Mr. Cope’s elbow and shepherded him into the building. The door swung shut behind them.
    It wasn’t clear to Liam what he had hoped to gain from this sighting. He started his engine and rolled up his window and drove home.
    Toward the end of June he phoned Bundy and invited him to supper on a night when Bundy’s fiancée had yoga class. He planned a real menu; it gave him something to do. He went to the supermarket for groceries, and he roasted a chicken. It was way too hot for roast chicken, but he didn’t know how to cook much of anything else. And Bundy was appreciative, since his fiancée fed him a steady diet of Lean Cuisines.
    Liam