Charlie asks her for a Perrier with lime. She says that San Pellegrino is what they have. He says it's all the same to him. Fancy water is fancy water.



Harry after an internal struggle asks what kinds of beer they have. Jennifer sighs, feeling they are putting her on, and recites, "Schlitz, Miller, Miller Lite, Bud, Bud Light, Michelob, Lowenbrau, Corona, Coors, Coors Light, and Ballantine ale on draft." All these names have an added magic from being tumbled a bit in her mouth. Not looking Charlie in the eye, Harry opts for a Mick. Jennifer nods unsmiling and goes away. If she doesn't want to excite middle‑aged men, she shouldn't wear all those earrings and go so heavy on the makeup.



"Piece of cake, you were saying," he says to Charlie.



"They freeze you. You don't know a thing."



"Guy I know down in Florida, not much older than we are, had an open‑heart and he says it was hell, the recuperation took forever, and furthermore he doesn't look so great even so. He swings a golf club like a cripple."



Charlie does one of his tidy small shrugs. "You got to have the basics to work with. Maybe the guy was too far gone. But you, you're in good shape. Could lose a few pounds, but you're young ‑ what, Fifty‑five?"



"Wish I was. Fifty‑six last February."



"That's young, Champ. I'm getting there myself." Charlie is Janice's age.



"The way I'm going l'll be happy to hit sixty. I look at all these old crocks down in Florida, shrivelled‑up mummies toddling right into their nineties in their shorts and orthopedic sneakers, perky as bejesus, and I want to ask 'em, `What makes you so great? How did you do it?' "



"A day at a time," Charlie suggests. "One day at a time, and don't look down." Harry can tell he's getting bored with issuing reassurances, but Charlie's all he's got, now that he and Thelma are on hold. He's embarrassed to call her, now that he can't seem to deliver. He says:



"There's this other thing they can do now. An angioplasty. They cut open an artery in your groin ‑"



"Hey. I'm eating."



"‑ and poke it up all the way to your heart, would you believe. Then they pop out this balloon in the narrow place of the coronary artery and blow the damn thing up. Not with air, with saltwater somehow. It cracks the plaque. It stretches the artery back to the way it was."



"With a lot of luck it does," Charlie says. "And a year later you're back in the same boat, plugged up with macadamia nuts and beer yet."

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