Page 37 of Wayfarers

I hear his spoon hit the bottom of the bowl.

“Can I get you anything else?” I ask, popping to my feet.

“Hey,” he says, “easy—I don’t need anything else. I have a lot more right now than I’ve had in a while.”

“I have some cupcakes I made—”

“Stop,” he says, and puts out his hand. “Two things. You don’t need to be my waiter, or my nurse, or anything. You’ve done a whole lot more for me in the last few hours than—it’s just been a while. I just want to hang out and listen to this weird radio show and watch it rain with you. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Good.”

“That’s one thing. What’s the second thing?”

“Can we do all that,” he asks, “while eating a metric ton of those cupcakes?”

“Totally,” I tell him, and I’m grinning like an idiot.

“Did you make them from a box mix?”

“Yeah, I don’t have a ton of room for raw ingredients and—”

“With the icing from a can?”

“Yeah,” I say, “sorry—”

But Knox is lifting his eyes to the ceiling. “I have died,” he announces, “and gone to heaven.”

Knox

An hour later we’re tired of being cooped up, and the rain has stopped.

“Never seen someone start a fire that fast,” Sylvie says, outside. “Even with two good hands and totally dry wood.”

“I was a Boy Scout,” I lie.

“That delights me.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s hard to picture.”

“Why?”

“Because you don’t have uniform-and-saluting energy.”

If only you knew. “I sure don’t.” I lower myself to a seat in one of Sylvie’s camp chairs in front of the fire. The air is cool and damp from the rain earlier.

Sylvie sits beside me on my left, a few feet away. “So where you from?”

“I was born in Asheville, North Carolina.”

“And then?”

“You’re a very curious person.”

“I thought that was a good thing?”