“My worst pants are in the dryer,” he replied. “Vanilla or Cinnamon Dolce?”
“Which one do you like best?”
He handed her the Cinnamon Dolce. “I can’t stay too long, I’m running late.”
“What do you do up there?” she asked.
“I already told you,” he said.
“Not really . . .”
“What do you do down here?”
She shrugged, settling back into the mud with her latte. “Nothing useful.”
“That’s not true,” he said. “Sometimes you throw phones into the air.”
She tilted her head. “You think I’m at my most useful when I’m being useful to you?”
“No,” he said. “I don’t know what to think.”
He didn’t.
“Tell me about the road,” she said one day. It was a beautiful February day. Sunny. Every day was sunny. Though some people said it would have to rain again, eventually.
“I love the road,” he said. “Everyone does.”
“Is it very smooth?”
“So smooth.”
“And wide?”
“So wide,” he said, smiling. “And it smells wonderful.”
“That’s very rude, Adam.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s okay. I know what it smells like down here. I have a nose.” She did, in fact.
“And there are flowers by the road,” he said, “fewer than before—but still the best flowers. There are no flowers anywhere that you can’t see from the road.” He wished that she could see it.
“What’s the best part?” she asked.
“The best part?”
“The best part, besides the Starbucks.”
“I almost hate to tell you this, but there are so many Starbucks.”
She sighed and laid her head down on her rock. Sometimes, she’d sit up on the rock. He liked that. She looked more like a something then—and less like part of the mud.
Today she was lying in the mud, with her head and arms on the rock, like it took too much effort to sit up any farther. “What’s the very best part of the road?” she asked.
The man—we may as well call him Adam, he already gave up his name—stopped to really think. Finally, he said, “The road goes everywhere you’d want to go. Everywhere you’d think of going. It never ends. And you’re never alone there. And everything you’d ever want is right there on the road.”
“That’s not the one best part,” she said. “That’s too many things.”
“Fine,” he said, “okay—the best part of being on the road is that when you’re on it, it’s all that you can see.”
Her eyes were closed.
“That probably doesn’t make sense to you,” he said.
“No, it does.” She wrinkled her nose, and the mud on her face cracked.
“What is that?”
“Strawberry Acaí Refresher.”
“It’s pink!”
“It’s seasonal.”
“Well, hand it over, Adam. Don’t be shy.”
Adam still felt shy here. He handed her the drink and settled down on the riverbank. It still hadn’t rained—it never really rained, something to do with the road. He could sit much closer to her now without ruining his khakis.
“This is delicious,” she said. “Why didn’t you get one for yourself?”
“I’m cutting back,” he said.
“On Strawberry Acaí Refreshers?”
“On carbs, mostly.”
“Ah. Bridge trolls don’t really have to worry about carbs.”
“Lucky,” he said.
“Yes,” she said, “I’m so lucky.”
He laughed, uncomfortably. He didn’t really know what bridge trolls worried about; he was a little afraid to ask. (No, that’s not right—he wasn’t afraid, really. He just didn’t want to know.) “I wish I knew your name,” he said.
“What do you call me in your head?”
He blushed. “That’s presumptuous.”
She sipped loudly at her drink. It was already empty. “So much ice,” she murmured.
“She,” he said. “I call you she. Her.”
“Now who’s being presumptuous,” she said, her tongue hugging every round consonant. (Her tongue.)
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Am I wrong?”
“No,” she said. “You’re right. Lucky guess.” She tipped the ice down onto the mud, over what was surely her bottom half. “Do they sell water at Starbucks?”
“No,” he said.
She seemed disappointed. “Oh.”
“I mean, I guess they do sell bottled water, but they’ll just give you a cup of water if you ask. Filtered.”
“Oh.”
“I could bring you water tomorrow.”
“Instead of a pink drink?”
“I could bring you both. They have drink carriers.”
“Is it true, what they say about the road?” She (she, she, she) had drunk half her venti water, then poured the rest between her chest and the rock. She was thick under all the thick mud. He could almost see her.
She slid up a bit on the rock.
“What do they say?” he asked.
“That the wizard’s crows watch you at every moment.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s true.”
“Even in your houses?”
“Yeah, I guess so. I don’t really think about it.”
“How could you not think about that?”
“They’re just crows,” he said. “You get used to it.”
She shuddered. “They’re not just crows. They’re like . . . flying eyeballs.”
“Yeah, but it’s not like the wizard can watch all of us at once.”
“I suppose.”
“And what’s he going to see if he’s looking at me? Me, sleeping? Me, making a sandwich?”
“So you like being watched by a dark wizard?”
“We don’t know that he’s dark.”
“I mean, his armies of crows seem like a clue . . .”
“Look, I don’t like the crows. They’re just . . . It’s such a small price to pay to live on the road.”
“I’ll take your word for it, Adam.”
“Oh, listen to you!” He was flustered. “I wish I knew your name—I’d win more of these arguments if I knew your name!”
That made her laugh. (He did make her laugh. At least once every day.) “Fine,” she said, “the crows are good. The crows are grand. If they see you choking, they can caw for help.”
“That’s true, you know.”
“So the crows aren’t the worst part of living on the road. What is?”
“What do you mean?”
“What’s the very worst part of living on the road?”
“We weren’t talking about that.”
“We are now.” She’d finished her pink drink, too, and was chewing on the ice.