Once-dashing encounter

While we were talking, Nando had come up next to me. I figured he was surprised that I knew someone here and was engaged in more-than-casual conversation. "Vi conoscete?" He asked me.

"Well, yes. I mean, we know each other’s dogs."

Nando was staring at the woman. She was staring at him. I wondered if perhaps they hadn’t met at some point while Nando was walking Homer. "La conosco?" He asked her. She said, "I was wondering the same thing."

But of course. (I don’t recall which of the two of them figured it out first). The woman’s father worked for the railroad with my father-in-law. Once that connection was established, the woman quickly filled in missing links. She is one of three daughters, the oldest, but still nine years younger than Nando. Plus, she remembered him as young and dashing, with thick black hair. Shaven bald as he is now, it’s not easy to reconcile the two images.

I whipped out the picture I keep of him from Lido di Estensi 31 years ago. "Ah si, this is the way I remember your husband."