Lost and Found
I take her hand and tell myself all the choices I made to save my son. Your name? Yes. Your breath? Yes. Your life? Yes! And up to yesterday's shift when—
I work at the bug shop. It's easy to find. The shop's in the biggest tree right in the center of Masked Mound. Jinglebeard Toad runs the shop, and I provide the bugs, although I don't quite know how. I'm sweeping the solid wood floor, savoring the tree's gentle sighs, and waiting for my boss to close the shop, so I can get some sleep. Of course a customer comes in right when my boss blows the whistle. It's Lady Reddew. I know her name and rank. She's important to me. I wish I knew why.
"Perditus!" my boss chimes up. "Attend to the customer." He always chimes when he talks. Jinglebeard Toad looks more like a bullfrog, about eight feet around, with bells all over his vocal sack. It's funny how I can remember it's a vocal sack, but I can't remember my name. Usually he advises me not to speak to customers.
I give the Lady my best salesman smile. "Bugs to eat and bugs to wear."
Lady Reddew ignores me. "Must I?" she asks my boss, starting a staring contest. She's tall and elegant, dressed in a dazzling gown of rubies and golden feather-down. He's...a toad. He flicks his tongue and grabs a Titan Beetle off the wall. The lady loses.
She turns to me at last. "Do I look like I'm here for a meal?"
"No, my lady. Right this way. We have these fine damselflies. I brought them in just this morning. And here's a Picasso beetle, most appealing—"
She looks down on me so gravely she grows five inches. "You took my daughter's prize. Don't take my time. Bring me the rarest, most beautiful bug you have."
I know neither what she means nor what she wants. My boss clears his throat with a clink. "Something from the special collection."
"Oh, in that case, we currently have one rainbow scarab, straight from—"
"Yes, that one," she says.
"The price," I say, carefully coached by my boss, "is listed here." I point at the special collection sign.
"I never discuss such matters. Certainly not with a man. Have your boss send me a request."
I unstick the bug from the wall, as alive as most of ours are—just sleeping, honest!—and put it in a gift box. She reaches out her hand. I tap the sign.
"I always pay my debts," she says.
I tap the sign again. Her nostrils flare, and her cheeks almost take on a little color. She expects, as the fancy ones do, to get it free. "I, known as Lady Reddew, do swear by the Queen to—oh, you mustn't be serious. You've nothing. The frog has nothing. This tree, this shop, both of you belong to me, and yet..."
My eyebrow raises a fraction, and I move the box closer to her the same precise distance.
"I could always return you," she sneers. "There's nothing less valuable than you." She crosses her arms and taps her foot. I wait. "I, known as Lady Reddew, do swear by the Queen to return one lost life to the one known as Jinglebeard Toad by tomorrow night." She repeats it twice, and I hand her the box.
"Well done," my boss says when she leaves. I bask in the rare praise. I have little else. "She worked for me once, you know. Now she owns it all, the tree, the shop, us. Stay sharp, Perditus. She's focused on the masquerade and other rivals. I'll have a chance to upset the balance, but I've got to keep my hand out of it. Now you just need your wife's hand."
I don't know what any of that means. I usually don't. The shack where I sleep is up in the wide branches of the tree. It's not too high up. The tree is almost as wide as it is tall. Now that the shop is closed, I climb up there and get into bed. There's another shack up here. I went in once, but it was full of bones, and I saw no reason to return.
When I wake up, I start the morning work. I step onto the wide branch and pick up the empty buckets. This morning the big tree has figs, cherries, clementines, lovebuttons, and summerdays. It's different every day. When I fill a bucket with fruit, I open an umbrella, hang the bucket on it, and let it glide gently to the ground.
I climb down to the shop. I tried to take a shortcut once, using the last umbrella to float myself down. My boss licked my legs healed and told me not to do it again.
The umbrellas go in a neat stack by the door. The buckets go on a cart, alongside a folded up tent and some empty jars. It's time. I brace myself and tug the cart out the back door. I wish I knew where it led or what I did there.
Call me Perditus Adams. I sell the finest, freshest fruit in the Farmer's Market. My name is lost to me, but my employer calls me Perditus, and I know my father was Adam. He let it slip. I asked him once why I change clothes, but he never does. He said it was because I was a son of Adam. Every little slip up is precious to me.
Every day I'm at a different market, but it's sequential. Today I'm at an old, small market in a place called Florida Panhandle. The last time I was here was eleven days to me, but it was last week to everyone here. I might return tomorrow or next month, but whenever it is, it will be next week. See? Either way, I've been coming to this one a long time.
I know, I always know, where to place the tent, and I always arrive alone in the quiet hours. I get the folding tent out and sing...well, okay, I sing:
A silly old frog with a beard
Invented a twist a bit weird
A tent with an engine
To get his revenge in
Against a red lady revered.
The tent unfolds, and the tables and stands are built in. All I have to do is sort the fruit and put it out for sale. The special fruit stays in the back. The tent comes with a broken cash register, a nasty looking stick with iron nails, and a miraculously preserved boxed lunch. I've never had to use them.
Other vendors straggle in, wiping their eyes, and it's "Hey, Mr. Adams," and "You're up early," and "How do you always have such good-looking fruit?" And I'm "Hey Tom," and "Early to be, early to rise," and "I've got my sources" with a tap on my nose.
When I watch the others set up, I'm thankful for my tent. Not that I mind work. I can't be out of breath, after all. All I have to do is put out the fruit and one faded sign. "Fruit: $5 per pound. Dimes only." I'd sell more if Jinglebeard Toad accepted cash or, more recently, credit. Customers come by. I weigh the fruit. I take the dimes. Every day I have to stand firm and say it's dimes only, but Tom in the booth to my right will sell them a roll of dimes for $5.50. I have a deal with a regular most places. My boss likes bread and cream, so as soon as I get some dimes and a break, I go buy some for him and put it on the cart. I can't remember ever giving any to him.
There are always a few regrets with any job where you deal with the public. You know what I mean. A perfect example, a bit past her prime, comes up to Tom's booth and bends over, staring at one of his signs with a sour face. "What are range eggs?"
"They're chicken eggs," Tom says.
"What's wrong with them? Why are you giving them away free?"
Tom meets my glance and we share a subtle smile. The predictable argument occurs. She comes over to me, already mad, and grabs a handful of cherries. "What shape are these cherries in?"
"Cherry," I reply.
"I know what they are. I asked you what shape they're in."
"They're cherry-shaped," I say with my special smile.
She throws them on the ground and stomps on them. I don't do anything but watch. There are advantages to working for Jinglebeard Toad. On her way to the next booth, she trips over one of the tent ropes and falls onto a shelf, upsetting a bucket of doughnut dough. The bucket sticks on her head, even though it's large enough to fit around her shoulders.
I feel sorry for the doughnut makers. They're new. We've never been introduced.
My boss comes by sometimes and talks with the other vendors. He's easy to recognize. He's a fat, bald man who always wears a thick, multicolored mohair vest covered with bells. No one else ever asks him about his name. He wouldn't answer if they did, but I always wonder why no one does.
In the afternoon or evening, I might get some special customers. Usually these are local boys from seven to seventeen. Sometimes there's an older man, a repeat customer. Sometimes there's a tomboy or two. They bring me bugs. Jinglebeard Toad prefers live ones for eating and pretty ones for wearing, but we buy all bugs. One beautiful bug, a half dozen live ones, or two dozen dead bugs, and you can reach into the special bucket.
I don't put that on the sign. I'm not stupid.
Today's a rare treat, an old acquaintance. "Perditus," a weathered old man says, "that is you, isn't it?"
"Sure is. Greg Jacobson?" He holds out his hand, and I shake it. He's still got the rough hands and firm grip I remember from his youth. It's funny how I can remember someone's name from fifty years ago, but I can't remember my own.
"What's your secret? Why, you don't look a day older than when I was a young man."
"Clean living," I said. "Got any bugs for me? For old time's sake?"
"It just so happens I brought a jar of them. I thought maybe someone might've taken your place."
He brings out a jar, and I appraise the specimens. June bugs, lady birds, a pretty treehopper, and a green darner. I take the jar and beckon him around back. "That's worth a handful. Help yourself." He reaches in and pulls out a few summerdays and a couple lovebuttons.
"Ah, I got no use for these anymore," he says, holding out the lovebuttons. "But I do thank you for helping me meet Jess."
"And how is Jess?"
"Oh, she passed a couple years back."
I shake my head. "Sorry to hear it. You have any grandkids? Maybe you know one who could use a lovebutton."
He pops a summerday in his mouth and his face relaxes into bliss. "I might at that," he says, when he recovers. "The grandkids don't live here, but there's a few nice young men and women at the church. It's hard to find someone these days. They all go on-line, and it's just a...a...flesh market."
"I know what you mean," I lie.
"Well, take care of yourself. I guess you do, at that."
I wave goodbye with a wistful smile.
I'm always the last to pack up. The unsold fruit goes back in the buckets. I sing the tent closed. All the dimes, bugs, and any bread and cream goes on the cart. I return through the port-a-potty, and it's time for another day.
The rest of my day starts at night with me pulling a cart with half-full buckets of fruit into Jinglebeard Toad's shop. One moment I'm taking the fruit out the door, the next I'm back with half-empty buckets, a bunch of jars of dimes and bugs, and sometimes bread and cream. Sometimes I wish I knew why.
My boss lets me have as much of the old fruit as I want. It's fantastic fruit, but somehow I never end up being hungry. So I drag the cart out the door and dump it in the unicorn trough. I wash the buckets out and take them and a stack of umbrellas up to my shack. If there are bugs, bread, or cream on the cart, I leave them for my employer.
It's a slow night. "Not much call for bugs this season," my employer croaks, "but there's the masquerade coming up."
"How come I remember the shop going back years, but I can't remember anything beyond the door?" I've asked before, but it's worth asking again.
Jinglebeard Toad turns to me with a dull clink. "Half a life for day, half for night. You'd be aging right fast otherwise. You'll be yourself again, soon enough, if Jinglebeard Toad has any say, but it can't be by my hand. It has to be all her doing. If she gets mad enough, she'll forget her obligations, and she'll owe me a debt she can't repay." As usual, his answer doesn't make sense.
Tonight, Number Thirteen Burr leads a fancy crowd into the shop. "Bugs to eat and bugs to wear," Jinglebeard Toad says. "How may I help you fine ladies and gentlemen?"
Number Thirteen Burr holds his cane up to his chin and sneers at the merchandise. I recognize him from his clothes. He always wears thick gloves, four or five shirts under a maroon vest with an intricate white flowery pattern. The little skin on his face that shows is covered, not with hair, but tiny thorns. "I was hoping," he says, "for a rainbow scarab."
My boss shakes his head vigorously, and I cover my ears. "Sold my last rainbow scarab last night."
"Can you tell us who bought it?"
Have you ever seen a frog smile? It's broad. "No."
Number Thirteen Burr grabs me by the arm. "The man can tell."
My boss looks ready to hop. "Not in my shop, he can't."
The customer lifts me up and starts dragging me towards the door. He ducks a thick tongue as it smashes into the wall, and then we're outside the shop.
I punch him in the belly with my free hand. I ought to know better.
"Behave," he says, and he stretches my arm out and twists it. It pops out of my shoulder, and I cry out. He drags me down the little hill, away from the big tree, by my injured arm. The fancy crowd accompany my screams with high, giddy laughter.
He dumps me on the ground, then picks my arm up again, twisting it back and forth. "Speak, man. Who bought the rainbow scarab."
The pain isn't necessary. I can't help but answer. "Lady Reddew." The fancy ones laugh more at this.
"My mother," Number Thirteen Burr says. "My mother bought it. Well, well."
"Oh, such pain! Let me play with it," one of the fancy ladies says. I agree. I look at her hair, her emerald eyes, her sheer dress with the slit that shows most of her leg. She's like a pretty version of Lady Reddew. There's nothing I want more than to give myself to her.
Number Thirteen Burr drops my arm, and I remember the pain. "There's naught left of him. Besides, you had a part of him once and lost it. We need an audience with our mother." The lady bares her teeth, but it could be politely considered a smile.
The fancy crowd leaves, and I lay there. I might have passed out. When I manage to get up, my shoulder is spasming, and it's all I can do to put one foot in front of the other. Jinglebeard Toad can fix it, I think with every step, as I stumble up the hill and into the shop.
"I don't care for the fancy crowd," Jinglebeard Toad says as I enter. "You wouldn't either, if you knew. Plain looking and plain speaking, that's me. Mind you, I was hoping they'd come by. And since you did me another favor, however small…"
His tongue lashes out and licks my shoulder, slow and strong. My shoulder relaxes, the muscles stretch out, and my arm pops back into place. A terrible fire runs from my shoulder down to my fingertips, and I am made well.
Another day, another market. This one's huge, most vendors don't last long, and I'm a stranger to all the tents near me. I sell very little here, no one makes change for dimes, and I have very few special customers. I always think I ought to tell Jinglebeard Toad—that's my boss, by the way—that we should skip this one. Somehow I never end up telling him. I wonder why?
So I am particularly surprised when the door opens, and it's not my boss. Here, it's a door right behind my tent with a faded stencil alleging "Sprinklers."
He's too old to be teenager, but he has zits on zits on zits. He's wearing multiple shirts for some reason, and a real fancy maroon vest with flowers on it. Whoever he is, he's not supposed to be here. I'm so surprised by his appearance, I forget what Jinglebeard Toad told me to do if anyone else came through the door. The stranger takes advantage of my confusion and swings his cane.
I turn, but it still hits my arm, and I stumble. "What are you doing here?" I ask, and step back, but I don't quite move back far enough. He swings the cane at my knee. It hits with a loud crack, and I can't stand on it anymore. I fall into the special buckets, spilling them onto the ground.
"Where's Jinglebeard To—"
He hits me twice in the side, and I think he breaks a rib. "Your life is forfeit," he says, drawing his cane high above his head. He swings it so fast I hear the tip whistle until it smacks the back of my head.
If I was alive, my life would indeed be forfeit. As it is, I'm down, but not out. I wake up. The stranger is still here, staring at the cash register, as if he's trying to figure out what it's for. I stand, taking my weight on one leg. The pain is immense. I grab the stick with the iron nails. There are no customers in view, no witnesses. I swing the stick at his head.
When the stick hits him, his whole body shimmers, like a road on a hot day. His head falls into the broken cash register, and I hit him again and again before he gets back up. He pushes himself off the table and back into the tent, but I can tell he's weakened. I hit him twice in the chest. The second blow knocks him down.
One of my neighbors calls out, "Hey, what's going on in there?"
I hit him once more on the ground, and this time the shimmering doesn't stop, but grows into a blur...and he's gone. There's no blood, no clothes, only a puddle of something oily that seems to evaporate.
I have to get the fruit back. Can't let Jinglebeard Toad down. The stick with iron nails falls from my hand, and I get down on my hands and good knee. I push the stick under the cart, sit the buckets back upright, and start looking for fruit. Firefruit and lovebuttons are everywhere. I grimace as I collect them.
Some men come by, while I'm still on hands and knees, saying there's been a disturbance. I guess they're the local security. I tell them someone knocked my buckets over. They don't believe me, but there's nothing here, no corpus other than me, so they leave.
I think I've found all the fruit, so I crawl to the chair and pull myself into it. It hurts to breathe. Good thing I don't have to, unless I need to talk.
Kevin comes by. He's a special customer. Usually I'm happy to see him, as I get so few customers here. "What do you have today, Mister Adams?" He's a polite boy.
"Firefruit...and lovebuttons," I gasp, "but for you...I recommend...the firefruit."
"You okay, Mister?"
I nod. "Just a little...winded."
"Will these do?" He holds up two small jars. Kevin always brings me fine specimens. Today it's a Pandora Sphinx and a Rosy Maple in one jar, and two Cuckoo Wasps in the other.
I force myself to breathe deep and smile. "These are great, Kevin! Two scoops in the bucket for you."
His face lights up, and he grabs two big handfuls of firefruit, shoving them in a pocket. "Now remember...don't let anyone see you...do the fire thing...okay?"
He nods and runs off. There's someone watching me. A woman, maybe late twenties, with plain brown hair in a ponytail. She wears jeans that look like she's been digging in the dirt. She looks like one the tomboys who bring me bugs, except she grew up and never grew out of it. I smile and try to ignore her. She wanders in and out of sight, all around the nearby tents, but keeps coming back to stare at me. "Can I help you? Want some...fruit? Dimes only...I'm afraid."
She comes a bit closer. "No, no thanks. Do you collect insects?"
"I do. You get free fruit...if you bring me some bugs."
"Are you hurt? I feel like I should...I keep coming back here."
I brace myself and take a deeper breath. "I hurt myself a little, earlier. It's nothing serious."
"Hi, I'm Olivia." She holds out her hand, and I take it.
"Perditus."
"Perditus." She glances at all the stands of fruit as if she's looking for something. "What are those salty, sort of creamy ones? The little red round ones?"
"Lovebuttons," I say, with another deep breath. I force myself to smile through the pain. "Bring me some bugs, and I'll give you one."
"I thought, I mean, I'm an entomologist, if you like insects, we have something in common."
"Sure," I say, without understanding.
"You're unexpected," she says.
I nod again, unsure of what she means. She stands there a bit, grasping the hem of her shirt and biting her lip. She leaves, but I keep catching glimpses of her around the nearby tents.
I want to close up early, but Jinglebeard Toad was very clear. No one should see the tent unfold or fold back up. So I wait until after closing time, when there's no one close enough and no one paying attention. Lifting the buckets and the folded up tent on to the cart is painful work. I think I hear someone gasp a few times, but I look around and see no one.
It takes me a few tries to sing the tent closed. I get it up on the cart, and I drag it all, hopping on one foot, back through the Sprinklers door.
I came around in the shop, like usual. What isn't usual is my broken knee. I'm supposed to dump the buckets in the unicorn trough, but I can't. I sit down on the cart and wait for Jinglebeard Toad.
Even less usual is the girl who comes in after me. The door shouldn't even work for anyone else. She has brown hair in a ponytail and fresh looking dirt on her clothes. I don't know her. "You shouldn't be here."
"Can I—" she starts, and looks around. "This isn't the sprinkler controls. Can I do something for your leg? Do you have an emergency kit? I can make a split at least. Do you have a phone?"
I shake my head. "I'll be fine. Once my boss gets here. You should go back. Through that door. Right now."
She looks around the shop instead. She walks up to one of the walls where we keep our stock. "Is that a Picasso Beetle?"
"You really must leave. Before he gets here."
There's a jingle and a slam, but it isn't my boss coming up the stairs. Lady Reddew looms in the doorway. She raises an elegant, crooked finger and points at me. "You! You killed him!"
This wakes the toad, and I hear the thump-jangle, thump-jangle as he comes up the steps from the basement.
Lady Reddew isn't finished yet. "First you take my daughter's prize, now you take my son!" I shake my head. "Oh, of course you don't remember. That doesn't matter. You're mine now. The toad can't do anything to stop it."
Jinglebeard Toad hops out of the wide stairway. "Bugs to eat and bugs to wear," he says. "What seems to be the problem?"
Lady Reddew turns on him. "Problem? Your mortal murdered my son! His life is mine! I demand it!"
"I expected that might happen." My boss settles down calmly with a tinkling of bells. "And you're late."
"You knew? You did nothing to stop it?"
Have you ever seen a frog smile? "Yup, nope," he says, "but you're right. Charles James Wilson can't stay under my roof. If you demand his life, his life as it is right now, I won't stop you."
I gasp. Charles James Wilson. Is that...me?
Lady Reddew pokes my boss with a finger. "I demand it!"
Jinglebeard Toad looms larger. He stretches his mouth out to Lady Reddew. "Again, I must ask. You demand his life? His life as it is right now?"
"I so demand it!"
"Done and done," my boss says. He begins growing, looming larger in the little shop. "The life of my servant is yours. And you owe me the life of one lost. I'm calling it due."
Lady Reddew seems smaller, stouter, less sure of herself. "Your toy, Charles, you can have him."
"Oh, but you wanted his life, did you not? How can you deliver him now?"
Lady Reddew keeps shrinking. She turns left and right, jerkily, as if she's trying to get out of someone's grip, but there's nothing holding her. "No, no! You work for me! I own you!" She shrinks and fades with every word until she begins to look less like a woman and more like a big, pinkish teardrop with legs.
"It's Bellmaster Toad now, Number Forty Dew." My boss is no longer a toad, but a man with a frog's head. He's wearing an old suit-coat with bells for buttons, bells for cuff-links, and bells on the coattails.
The pink teardrop screams and begins to simmer. Bellmaster Toad walks over to her. "You promised to return one lost life, remember? Then you demanded my servant's life. But Charles was dead, his life was already yours. The only life he had was that of my servant. I knew you wouldn't last a hundred years with your wit and temperament."
The blob screams louder. She is boiling away so fast I can see her shrinking, but my boss isn't finished. "I called in my debt. You must pay it with what you have. My life is lost, is it not? It was yours, was it not? All you stole from me is returned, and all is right with the world."
Bellmaster Toad turns away from her and comes over to me. He bends down and licks my knee. It burns terribly and I am well. No, not well, but gasping for breath, filled with terrible hunger and thirst. I fall to my knees and struggle not to fall further. "I return your life and breath, as it was owed to me by the one who took it, for your years of loyal service. Now you need only your wife's touch."
"I don't have a wife," I say.
"You did and you will. Do you not remember the words of your promise?" He ignores the shrinking blob and walks, almost skips really, back down the stairs. I remember a little. Something about my son. My son? Lady Reddew took my name "until your wife comes to our land; until you feel the touch of her hand.She took my life "until you earn three licks from a hopper; and three myriads your weight in copper."
I hear a faint sob and remember the girl who followed me here. I see her pressed up against a wall, her hand in her mouth, and her eyes wide. "It's okay," I say and walk up to her. I take her hand, and—
Charles. My name. My old life. I tell myself everything, from the day my son went missing, to the day I followed him into faerie, all the way up to now. I draw a few deep breaths as I struggle to sort the years. The screaming halts, and what's left of Lady Reddew turns to sobs.
I look at the girl, down at our clasped hands, and back at her. "Olivia, right? You ate one of the lovebuttons, didn't you?"
She nods. "What is going on?"
"We're in Faerie. I work for...worked for Jingle...ah, Bellmaster Toad. I trade fruit for bugs. He sells the bugs here. One sort of fae likes to eat them. The other sort likes to wear the pretty ones. Both like to pull their legs and wings off. We need to get out of here."
I hear a faint jingle behind me. Bellmaster Toad snuck up on us. "You remember. I can see it. Your old family is long, long gone. You will find their memory muted, as if it happened to another. It will not be easy to adjust, but let no one say Bellmaster Toad isn't generous in his obligations. You'll leave my service with coins in your pockets and youth in your step. I dare say you'll find happiness again, and that is more than I could ever ask for."
"Thank you," I say.
"For the sake of your loyal service, I shall ignore that. If you go back through the door quick, you'll be in the same market she came from."
I look around the shop one final time. It wasn't a bad half-life. I hold Olivia's hand tight and lead her back through the door.
We arrive in the quiet hours when the market is dark and empty. Olivia drops my hand and opens the Sprinklers door again. It no longer leads to the shop, but to a small, dusty room of pipes, valves, and meters. She turns to me. "Are you Perditus or Charles?"
"Charles," I say, "at last."
"What just happened? I think you owe me an explanation."
"I do, I do, but I desperately need something to eat and drink. I haven't eaten in decades." There won't be anything to eat at the market for hours.
"I...my car isn't too far from here." She holds out her hand again, and I take it.
We sit at a restaurant, open all night if you can believe that, and eat waffles and eggs. The food isn't bad.
I tell her what I told myself. I had a life, a wife, children. We had an orchard and sold canned fruit, candy, and honey. It seems distant now. A fae, Lady Reddew's daughter, tricked my son and took him. I found her and freed him, but Lady Reddew found us on the way out. To save my son, I gave her my name, my breath, and my life. Her daughter hated her for it, and later she hated me because her daughter hated me. Or maybe because that is how most fae are, concentrated bits of hatred and jealousy. The toad took me in, kept me from fully dying, and gave me a job. I told her how I'd regain my memories if I held my wife's hand.
"I'm your wife now? Aren't you being a bit presumptuous?" Olivia puts her head in her hands. "I don't think you're crazy. Why don't I think you're crazy?"
"The lovebutton, probably."
She looks up. "What did they do to me? I heard a smack and a thud, and I saw some of them roll out from under your tent. They smelled so good. I ate them. Next I know, I'm walking around in a daze, and then I see you sitting there in your booth. I...I felt..."
"It leads you to someone you might love and opens you both to the possibility."
"That's all? And you just happened to be right there? How can I tell you didn't...drug me or something. I definitely feel drugged."
"They can't go against free will. Lovebuttons can't force someone to love you." I shrug and put down my fork, finally full after a third plate. "I think my boss set us up." I smile at her. "I'm not upset, however it happened."
She buries her face in her hands again, but there's a hint of a smile at the edges of her lips. "God, I have to be at work in an hour. I have three farms to visit and none of them are near here. I don't...you don't have a house or anything, do you? How can I find you again?"
"I don't know what I'll do. I don't even know where here is."
"A little outside of Lexington. Kentucky." I nod. I learned all forty-six states and their capitals in school. "I can give you my number."
"Your number?"
She lowers her head, forcing her hands through her hair. "Arrg. You don't know about phones, do you?"
"Of course I know about telephones. I gather the little ones people carry in their pockets nowadays…well, I never saw anyone whistle into one, and they don't have a crank or a dial."
She looks up and reaches across the table for my hands. Her hands are rough, but warm and comforting. "Can you...can you meet me here, tonight? Will you be okay for, oh, ten hours?"
The waitress comes by and smacks a paper on the table. We separate, and I pick it up. I decipher it as a list of the amount due. Out of long dead habit, I reach into my pocket. It's not empty.
I pull out a roll of dimes and lay it on the table.
I reach in and pull out another roll of dimes.
I almost hear a jingle, and I smile. "I think I'll be fine."