Vivienne invited Vera round the table to inspect an empty place in her diary. Saturday had not yet acquired their evening, and Vivienne disliked the prospect of reducing it to a name and a time. “Vera, half past seven,” she said, sounded like someone coming to discuss the drains. Wednesday, meanwhile, belonged to the dentist and was not available for inspection. She wanted Vera's pencil. An evening like theirs deserved a better name, even if finding one meant letting Vera see the page before Vivienne had made it impressive.
Vera lent the pencil but defended the ordinary appointment. Her name beside a time meant Vivienne expected her to arrive; that seemed a considerable merit. Dangerous enchantment, should Vivienne choose to announce it, might oblige Vera to bring a drain rod. Then she asked for the bag to be moved. She was coming round as invited, interested in what Vivienne would choose without wanting to choose it for her. She intended to bring herself on Saturday, in something Vivienne had not seen. Transforming an entire evening was more than she had offered.
With the bag moved, Vivienne made her entry: “Vera. Dancing. 7.30.” She called it an austere monument to her self-control, then immediately added a star. Restraint had its limits, especially in her own margins. Tomorrow she wanted to open the book and find something worth anticipating already there. Vera did not have to transform anything. Even unfortunate buttons on the promised outfit would fail to ruin the prospect. The appointment remained quite plain; the star allowed Vivienne to admit how little plainness had to do with her feelings about it.
Vera declared the buttons innocent and kept the rest of the outfit to herself. She liked the star, particularly the fact that Vivienne had drawn it while she watched. Then she offered something from her own diary. Vivienne's name had appeared twice: first too close to the edge, then erased and written again in the middle. Vera had not been afraid of forgetting. She had wanted to see the name with the evening left around it. She allowed Vivienne a moment to enjoy that before making anything unbearable of it.
For once, Vivienne did not reach immediately for something unbearable. She liked the second inscription more than her own star. She wanted to see it, too, but told Vera she need not produce proof. There could remain something Vivienne had not leaned over. Her own diary could close. Saturday had been given its name and hour; she did not want all of Tuesday to disappear into talking about it. Would Vera come for a walk now, only to the corner, in their familiar clothes? The dress could wait until she got home. She would still try it on before sewing.
Vera said yes, and enlarged the invitation without requiring a destination. They could go beyond the corner if they still wanted to when they reached it. She had no wish to stop obediently at the boundary of an invitation made small enough to feel safe. She would get her coat. The green lamp could remain Saturday's business; for now she wanted a street neither of them had made a speech about. Vivienne could have her arm. Vera was pleased to be taking her out before Vivienne had finished explaining what being taken out would be like.
“Our walk,” Vivienne corrected. She had asked, after all, though Vera appeared to be enjoying a promotion. She accepted the arm along with the correction's unfinished argument. Her coat was ready; the diary went into her bag. Saturday could fend for itself. At the corner she proposed a right turn, towards a narrow passage beyond the bakery. She had always walked past it, thinking it looked as though it ought to lead somewhere useful. They could find out. Unless, she suggested, Vera needed to know where she was going.
Vera's immediate requirement was more limited: she needed to know where her keys were. Her coat pocket supplied the answer. Beyond that, she was willing to disappoint Vivienne's opinion of her. Their walk, Vivienne's mysterious passage, Vera's excellent arm: the arrangement seemed sufficient. Even a wall at the end would not require Vivienne to invent a reason she had intended to bring her there. Vera might like the wall. But “somewhere useful” had caught her attention. Before they had reached the passage, she asked where Vivienne had once hoped it would lead. The diary was closed; that question was still open.