He waited.
“Hello?” he called again.
The womanish thing rose up out of the mud. “Oh, hello. I wasn’t expecting to see you.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t sure you’d be around this time of day.”
“I’m here pretty much all the time.”
“Oh. That’s nice. I mean . . .” He faltered. “Is it nice? It’s nice for me. To find you here.”
She smiled at that. He could see her teeth. She had teeth.
“I brought you something,” he said, “to thank you.”
“You already said thank you.”
“Well, I know, but I was stopping for coffee anyway. There’s a Starbucks just down the road.”
“You brought me Starbucks?”
“Do you not like Starbucks?”
“No, of course, I do. Just, um . . .” She was looking up at him from her patch of mud.
He looked down at his hands, at the two paper cups. “Oh,” he said. “I see what you’re getting at . . . I could drop it, I guess?”
“You could,” she said. “That seems like something you would do.”
He laughed. She laughed, too.
“I wish I could just bring it down to you . . . ,” he said.
“Too bad this isn’t a wishing well,” she said, another joke. Then she said, “Actually this might have been a wishing well, once upon a time.”
“I can’t believe I was so stupid,” the man said. (He’s not a prince, but he might as well be.) “I’d bring it down to you if I could, if there was a path.”
“I believe you,” she said.
He believed her.
“What are you doing?” she shouted.
It was the next day, at the same time, and the man was climbing over the ornamental hedge that separated the road from everything else.
“I’m just trying to get over these shrubs.”
“Be careful, they just sprayed!”
“I’m being careful,” he said, snagging his pants on some thorns.
“You’re going to spill your Starbucks,” she said.
“It’s your Starbucks,” he said.
“Well, then you really shouldn’t spill it.”
He laughed. His foot was stuck in some branches. It didn’t hurt. The thorns didn’t hurt either. But it was embarrassing. The whole thing was embarrassing. He felt silly. “This is why no one leaves the road,” he said to himself. “Maybe I’ll just leave the coffee here for you?” he called. He couldn’t quite see her from here, from the middle of the hedge. He’d never really seen her.
“I won’t be able to reach it,” she said. “You may as well take it to work—maybe someone else will drink it.”
“Yeah, okay,” he said. “I guess it’s the thought that counts?”
“Did your mother tell you that?”
“Did you come back to visit that hedge?”
It was the next day. He was midway through the bushes. She was already laughing at him.
“I’m bringing you Starbucks!” he shouted.
“I’ve heard that before,” she said.
“Ha ha!” He kept working his way through, letting the thorns catch in his sleeve. He’d intentionally worn his cheapest sweater.
“Even when you get past the hedge, you’re going to have to slosh down through mud.”
“It’s okay. I wore my worst clothes.”
“I’m flattered.”
“Ugh, sorry. I’m just—” He felt his foot land in the mud on the other side of the hedge. “Ha!” He pulled his other foot though the shrub. “Aha!”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah! I’m good. I’m—” He was off the road. He couldn’t see it anymore. It was just on the other side of the hedge. He could go back. Maybe he should go back?
“You didn’t spill the coffee.”
He turned toward her voice. He could see her better now. Could see her person-like shape, leaning on a rock at the edge of the old riverbed.
He walked toward her. “Hi.”
“Hi,” she said.
He was standing above her now. “I, um—”
She reached her hand-like thing toward him.
“Plain or vanilla?” he asked.
“Give me the one you’d want yourself,” she said.
He laughed and gave her the vanilla. “That’s very selfish of you.”
“Oh, please, you get Starbucks every day.”
I could bring you coffee every day, he almost said. (And the thing is, he really could. It wouldn’t take much. This hadn’t taken much.) (He didn’t say it.)
“You could sit down,” she said.
He looked down at the mud.
“Go on, you’re already wearing your worst pants.”
“That’s true.”
He sat down carefully, a few feet away from her, away from the center of the riverbed, where the mud was dark and thick. She wiped some sludge away from her lips to sip her coffee. She had lips.
He’d hoped the mud was just good, clean mud. But the smell was terrible now that he was sitting in it.
“The river smelled better,” she said. He must have been making a face.
“No,” he said, “it’s fine.” He sort of remembered the river. They’d needed it for the road. Whatever the road needed, they took.
She took another sip of the coffee. There was whipped cream on her lip. And mud on the lid. “That’s really lovely,” she said.
“I’m glad you like it,” he said.
She took another drink. “It’s seriously good.”
“I know.”
“It’s amazing that you can have it every day.”
“Some people say it’s a waste of money,” he said. “But I always feel like it’s worth it. Small, good things are worth it.”
“Totally,” she said. “Treat yourself.” She looked up at him. The mud was sliding down her shoulders, clinging to her long hair. (Hair, too.) “Thank you,” she said, looking down at her coffee, “Adam.”
His stomach pitched. His face fell. “How . . . how do you know my name?”
She smiled. “It was written on the cup.”
“I . . . That’s not . . . I wasn’t supposed to tell you my name.”
“No,” she said, “it’s fine. You’re thinking of fairies.”
“And dwarves,” he said.
“Right, dwarves.”
“And elves.”
“But not bridge trolls,” she said. “Really, Adam, I’m, like, the only creature you’re safe giving your name to.”
He laughed. He was embarrassed. And relieved. (Though not completely.) “What about you?”
“I told you, I can’t hurt you.”
“What’s your name, I mean.”
“I can’t tell you that,” she said between sips. “Everyone knows you can’t trust princes.”
“I’m not a prince.”
He may as well be.
“Those aren’t your worst pants,” she said, tilting her head to the side to examine him.