By Elizabeth Harrower, from the story collection A Few Days in the Country, out this month from Text Publishing. Harrower lives in Sydney, Australia. She is the author of five novels.

Julia Holt was never impressed. Not being impressed was one of the chief things about her. Any new friend who ran to her with news, like a pup prancing up with a moldy bone between its teeth, learned this. The new friend, as it were, fell back a step or two in an effort to bring the whole of Julia into focus again, while Julia looked knowing and…