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STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET
by Kate Wilhelm

Each of this grand master’s four previous publications in Asimov’s has
been memorable. Three, “With Thimbles, With Forks, and Hope”
(November 1981); “The Gorgon Field” (August 1985); and “I Know What
You’re Thinking” (November 1994), were nominated for major awards, and
the fourth, “The Girl Who Fell Into the Sky” (October 1986), brought home
the Nebula. These days, she tells us, she leads a quiet life gardening and
spending time with friends, family, and cats. Not long ago, she marked the
fiftieth anniversary of her first short story’s (“The Mile-Long Spaceship”)
selection for one of the Year’s Best anthologies. “I bought a portable
typewriter with the money I got for it, the same typewriter I had rented to try
to get a decent final copy in the first place.” The bittersweet tale that follows
shows us how fortunate it is for all of us that she’s still writing as much as
ever.

****

Edith Dreisser cursed under her breath when a gust of wind blew rain into
her face as she struggled to close her umbrella before entering the
restaurant. The hostess met her with a sympathetic smile and took the
umbrella.

“I’m to meet Dr. Lipsheim,” Edith said, taking off her dripping raincoat.
The hostess took that, too, and hung it up.

“Dr. Dreisser? He’s expecting you. This way, please.” She led the
way through the dining room, sparsely occupied that late in the afternoon, to
a corner booth.

Cal rose to greet her. He was smiling broadly, both hands
outstretched to take hers as he bent to kiss her cheek. “Edie, you’re looking
wonderful, as usual. And you’re cold. Irish coffee? Just to take the chill off
?”

She grinned and nodded. Cal was seventy or seventy-one, tall and
spare, and balder every time she saw him. And he knew how to take off a
chill.

He sent the hostess away after telling her to order them both an Irish
coffee.

“It was so good of you to come on such short notice,” Cal said,
resuming his seat across the booth from her.

“You know perfectly well that an invitation from you is a royal
summons,” she said. He had been her advisor, her mentor, and she had
worked briefly in the hospital where he had since become the head of the
neurology department. She was a research neurophysiologist, or a