by J. S. Volpe
* * *
They met for dinner at Bistro 27, a chic restaurant five blocks north of the Wellness Center where Solace (or “Santvana”) worked. It occupied most of the first floor of one of the few pre-Cataclysm buildings left standing in that neighborhood after the massive destruction the city suffered during the Last Great War over seven hundred years earlier.
Reynard had dressed as befitted the place’s poshness, choosing a black-and-silver SynthSilk unitard accessorized with a white NuPlat headband and a white three-quarter length cape with numerous pockets, two of them hidden. On his feet were the same boots he had worn to the Wellness Center earlier, though between then and now he had scrubbed them well to ensure they were free of blood and any other stray bodily fluids.
When he arrived, exactly on time, Solace rose from the red padded bench in the lobby and gave him a smile and a wave. She wore a sleeveless black singlet whose legs extended only to mid-thigh and whose collar was cut low enough to provide a tantalizing peep of cleavage, plus a green half-cape, a green pouch-sash to hold her necessities and valuables, and a pair of white high-heeled boots. She had braided her hair and intertwined the braids in an elaborate bun atop her head, a 70-year-old style called Layered Organic that had lately become trendy again. He thought it looked terrible on her.
“You look great,” he said.
“Thanks.”
“I hope you weren’t waiting long.”
“Only a minute. I just got here.”
“Oh, good.”
The maître d’, a five-foot-tall robot with a variety of limbs and sensory apparatuses bristling from its pyramidal body, rolled out from behind the podium on eight puffy tires and spread a pair of pincered arms in welcome.
“Is this the entirety of your party?” it said in a soft, pleasant voice.
“Yes,” Reynard said.
“Excellent. Please follow me.”
When the maître d’ led them through a low archway and into the restaurant proper, Reynard’s jaw dropped in astonishment. The room looked enormous, its dimensions many times larger than those of the building containing it. As they walked on and he looked closer, however, he realized its size was an illusion: The steel walls were polished to a mirror-like sheen that reflected the diners and the candlelit tables and the potted giant flytraps and the reflections from the other walls and the reflections’ reflections and so on and so on to make the room appear as vast as a city block, an effect the high, steep-vaulted ceiling helped accentuate. It wasn’t until they were halfway to their table that he noticed the room’s other distinctive feature: The floor was made of thick glass, and beneath it a complex configuration of gears turned, some as small and delicate as snowflakes, others big enough to crush a house.
“I read up on this place on the T-Net before coming here,” Solace said, voice low as if she didn’t want the maître d’ to overhear. “Apparently that’s the original pre-Cataclysm machinery that did…well, whatever was done here. No one’s quite sure what the building’s original purpose was.”
“Wow,” Reynard said. “It’s hard to believe something so old is still going after all this time.”
She glanced at him uncertainly. If he were Reynard, he would know about her immortality and thus the comment would harbor a double meaning. But she couldn’t be sure of his identity, so her only response was a barely audible laugh and a “yeah.”
After seating them at a table for two near the back of the room, the maître d’ sped away to tend to new arrivals, and their server appeared, a young, wiry Ajin man clad in the red tuxedo suit assigned to all of Bistro 27’s bipedal employees. He bowed, introduced himself as Yif, and handed them menus and a wine list. After a brief discussion they ordered a bottle of Vävelaran Pink, 7067.
“So…” Solace said once Yif was gone. “Malfort, wasn’t it?”
He gave a strained smile. “Halfor.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m so bad with names.” She tried her best to sound embarrassed, but he could tell it was an act. She had been testing him, seeing if he remembered the name he used this afternoon. “I remember faces forever, though.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m pretty bad with names and faces. For some reason, I always remember clothes the best.”
“Seriously?”
“Yep. No idea why.”
She laughed. “That’s…different. Now I’m worried I should have spent a little more time choosing my outfit.”
“Trust me, you did fine.”
She smiled with a mix of satisfaction and self-consciousness, then looked down to watch the gears beneath the floor. He did likewise. Their seat was situated at the center of the largest gear in the room, a gargantuan piece of metal twenty feet across. Watching its thick spokes and wide, toothed rim sweep in slow unending circles around them made him feel a little dizzy.
“Well,” Solace said, picking up her menu, “I hope the food’s as good as the ambiance.”
“You’ve never been here before?”
“No, but I’ve always wanted to come. This place always gets stellar reviews from the food critics. You?”
He laughed. “No. Actually, I just moved here.”
“Where from?”
“Shandar.”
“Oh! I’ve been there. It’s a lovely place. What brought you all the way to Nioedo?”
“New job. It’s a big move, but it was way too good an opportunity to pass up.”
“What is it you do?”
“I’m a financial systems analyst,” he said. It was a profession with which he was familiar enough to be able to fake his way through a conversation, but also one he figured she would find far too dull to make a topic of conversation in the first place.
“Ah,” she said, nodding. “I have to admit, financial matters are not my thing. I mean, I’m okay at them and I appreciate their importance, but frankly they make my eyes glaze over. No offense.”
“None taken. A lot of people share that attitude. I understand perfectly. I feel the same way about the Arts. I get that they’re important. But me? I prefer more tangible things.” He slightly emphasized the penultimate word, letting her find innuendo there if she chose to.
She did. She raised her eyebrows and smiled knowingly. “Do you, now?”
Yif returned with the wine. He poured each of them a glass, then waited while they tasted it.
It was excellent, with a smooth rosy flavor that had a faint appley undertone. Reynard luxuriated in its tingly warmth as it suffused first his mouth, then his throat, then his belly. He had had a lot of wines over the years, but the Vävelaran stuff always surpassed all others.
“Are the establishment’s esteemed guests now prepared for their ordering delight?” Yif asked, his hand raised halfway to the T-pad jutting from his jacket’s breast pocket.
“I am,” Reynard said. He looked at Solace. “You?”
“Uh….yeah, as long as you go first.”
He ordered the Cobolaro Delight. After some dithering, Solace chose the curiously named Squid/Spinach-Noodle Whirlpool. Yif punched their order into his T-pad, which transmitted it directly to the kitchen, then headed away to tend to other diners.
“I don’t understand myself sometimes,” Reynard said, shaking his head. “I travel all this way from Shandar, and I’m still ordering seafood.”
“You probably just need that touch of home to make yourself feel comfortable. Nioedo is a totally different place than Shandar. It’ll take a while to adjust, I’m sure.”
“True.”
“Were you born there?”
“No, my family moved there when I was ten. I’m originally from Brambot.”
“Oh, I like Brambot. That’s a nice place. But still, nowhere’s quite like Shandar. I remember when I visited it a few years ago, I almost didn’t want to leave. It’s so beautiful! All those huge historic warehouses along the docks. And, um, what’s that one place called? The big park with the old laser cannon?”
He nodded. “Tar Park.”
“Right. And that street with the buildings with the gold façades.”
He opened his mouth to say “Doubloon Street,” then realized Doubloon Street had burned down in the Great Fire of 5776.
Very clever. She almost had him.
He was about to tell her he had no idea what she was talking about when an even better idea struck him, one that would flip her ploy right back in her face.
“Do you mean Doubloon Street?” he said with a frown.
“Yeah, that’s it,” she said, leaning forward. Her tone and expression remained calm and conversational, but her eyes shone with the excitement of a predator about to make a hard-won kill.
He shook his head in mock confusion. “That’s been gone for…well, a long time. Hardly anyone’s ever even heard of it. The only reason I know about it is because my mom was a history teacher, and she developed this kind of obsession with obscure Shandaran history. She had all these musty scrapbooks full of clippings.”
“Oh.” Solace had gone very still, eyes fixed on him, unblinking. “Um…”
“So, what, are you saying you actually saw it when you visited? You must be older than you look.” He chuckled like someone who’s said something witty.
She continued staring at him for a moment, then emitted a breezy laugh and made a backhanded swatting motion with her hand as if to shoo away crazy ideas.
“You’re silly,” she said. “No, I have to admit, I only saw it in a book. I figured it was just a locale I hadn’t gotten to during my visit.”
“Ah.” Nice save.
Yif returned with a tray. Reynard and Solace shared a surprised glance. It seemed too soon for the meal to be ready.
It was. Instead of their dinners, the tray bore a platter of bite-sized appetizers.
Yif saw their confusion. As he set the platter in the center of the table, he explained, “These are amuse-bouches, artful creations of flavorful bliss, concocted to excite your tastebuds with quivering anticipation for the impending feast. They are an essential portion of the dining experience here at Bistro 27.” He bowed and departed.
Reynard and Solace leaned forward and examined the items on the platter. There was a sphere of crabmeat drizzled with an amber-colored sauce; a cube of some dense white substance wrapped with ribbons of seaweed; a square of rich orange cheese with slender silver anchovies crosshatched atop it; a wedge of baked tofu dotted with small black seeds and topped with slivers of pimiento; a tight bundle of crisp red and green leaves arranged to resemble a rosebud; a tiny bowl made of sticky rice filled with a dollop of pink paté garnished with shreds of green onion; and ringing the platter, twelve crackers on each of which was a layer of creamy white spread decorated with a twelve-pointed star made of glistening red roe.
Solace looked up at him over the platter.
“Is there anything on here you particularly want to try?”
“Just one of those caviar cracker thingies.”
“Mm. Yeah. Those look tasty.”
They each took one of the crackers, which turned out to be just as blissfully flavorful as Yif had promised. The tastes and textures complemented each other perfectly—rough wheaty cracker, rich creamy spread, fishy roe crackling and popping against tongue and teeth.
After sips of wine to cleanse their palates, Solace chose the piece of cheese layered with anchovies, while Reynard picked up the leafy rosebud and sniffed it. It gave off a strong vegetative odor he didn’t recognize. He thought he detected a hint of fish as well, but figured it was the residual aroma of the rosebud’s neighbors on the platter.
When he bit into it, a complex mix of flavors filled his mouth. He didn’t recognize the types of leaves, but the green ones were sharp and tangy, while the red ones were smooth and cooling. And nestled deep between them were shreds of sea stalker, a fish whose buttery flavor added the perfect touch to the amuse-bouche.
“Damn, that’s good,” he said.
“Mine too,” Solace said around a mouthful of fish and cheese. She swallowed, sank back in her seat with a satisfied sigh, then took another sip of wine.
“Do you have a preference?” he asked, gesturing at the remaining appetizers.
She sat forward and studied them a moment, then picked up the white cube wrapped in seaweed.
“If you don’t mind…” she said.
“I do not.”
She popped it into her mouth. Her eyes immediately widened in surprise.
“Spicy!” she said. “It’s some kind of radish, I think.” She bit into it. Her eyes went even wider while her hand half rose to her mouth. “Mm! There’s some kind of sauce in the center of it. It really breaks up the spiciness.”
“But is it good?”
“It’s fantastic.” She glanced at the remaining items on the platter. “I’ll bet there’s a lot of eater’s remorse here.”
“How so?”
“Well, aside from the crackers, there’s only one of each thing. I mean, there really should be enough of each for every person at the table, don’t you think?”
He smirked. “I think it’s a very clever ploy by the restaurant to give people incentive to come back.”
He picked up the paté-filled bowl, raised it to his open mouth, then stopped, realizing she was staring at him with eyes as narrow as razor cuts.
“What?” he said.
“You are Reynard.” Her tone was vehemently certain on the surface, but underneath it he thought he detected lingering threads of uncertainty.
He gave her a long, steady look without a trace of emotion. Then he lowered his head, set down his amuse-bouche, and placed his hands palms down on the edge of the table as if he were about to push himself away from it.
He sighed and shook his head. When he looked back up at her, it was with an expression of mingled annoyance and disappointment.
“Look,” he said, “you obviously think I’m someone I’m not and—”
Her veneer of certitude collapsed. She shook her head and held up her hands, palms outward. “No, no—”
Hiding his glee at her panic, he said, “I should go.”
“I’m sorry.” She was cringing in mortification now. “I am so sorry. It’s just, you look and sound so much like this guy I knew…”
“Yeah, well, this is just too weird for me. I mean, I don’t know if you’re interested in me for me, or if it’s because I remind you of—of your ex-boyfriend, or whatever he is.”
She started to say something about how he wasn’t her ex-boyfriend, but then realized the pointlessness of it.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, this time with a serious, level gaze. “Let me just say in my defense that if you knew how similar you were to this guy, you’d understand. That said, I want you to know that I am having a very good time and I would very much like it to continue.” She cocked her head and flashed a beseeching smile. “Can we just keep on with dinner, please? I assure you, it won’t happen again.”
He eyed her in silence for six seconds (he counted them), enjoying the sight of her struggling to maintain that smile. Then he heaved a deep sigh as if he were about to act against his better judgment.
“All right,” he said. “But—”
“No more. Really.”
They regarded each other in silence. He nodded with a small smile. She nodded with a much larger smile. He allowed his own smile to broaden in response.
So,” she said, taking a cracker off the platter, “I never did ask what brought you to the Wellness Center this afternoon. Um, I mean, if that’s not too personal or anything…”
He had been prepared for that question and was amazed it had taken her this long to ask.
“Oh, it was nothing too serious. Little gash on my hand. A knife slipped while I was cutting a cucumber. It was easy to fix. I was in and out of the Center in no time.” He picked up his paté-filled rice bowl and popped it into his mouth. The paté was athelok, an animal somewhat similar to a bison. An unusual choice, but a very tasty one.
“Which biomage did you see?”
she asked him.
He chewed his amuse-bouche with a thoughtful frown. “I don’t recall his name, actually. Older guy? Short dark hair?” Those were safe bets. No doubt numerous biomages at the Center fit that description.
“Was it Doki, maybe?”
“That sounds familiar…”
“He’s good. He rated close to Level 4, you know.”
“No kidding! That certainly explains how he was able to heal me up so fast.”
“Yeah, he’s one of the decent ones.”
“What, some of them aren’t?”
She groaned. “Oh, don’t get me started. I mean, they do their work well, but biomages can be some of the most arrogant people on the planet. I think it’s endemic to the profession.”
“I had no idea.”
“Sad but true.”
“So, what led you to choose this particular career?” He was genuinely curious to learn the answer to that. After all, during their ill-fated T-Net exchange, she told him she had saved a fortune and worked only when and where she wished. Had she lost all her money? He couldn’t think of any other reason she would choose to slave away at a thankless, low-paying job where each new day brought a fresh batch of losers leaking blood and pus all over everything. Of course, she would never admit to “Halfor” that she once had a fortune, but he hoped to glean some insight into the truth from whatever BS she offered up.
To his surprise, she gave him a small frown as if she found the question weird.
“It’s good work,” she said. “It helps people.”
Oh, right. The whole do-gooder thing. How could he have forgotten? Still, he was astounded she would take it to such an extreme. She was an immortal, for fuck’s sake. Why would she spend her days wallowing in filth and gore when she could help unfortunate schlubs just as much via, say, charitable donations?
“To be honest,” she went on, “I don’t know if I’ll stick with it much longer. I’ve been there six years now, and I get bored if I do the same thing for too long. I’m fickle.” She sighed with mock despondence. “We fickle women.”
“Eh, it’s nothing a domineering husband can’t fix.”
“Quiet, you,” she said, laughing and raising her napkin as it hurl it at him.
Yif appeared with their dinners hefted on a tray. In front of Solace he set the Squid/Spinach-Noodle Whirlpool. This consisted of long spinach noodles twined together into a rope that had been coiled around the inner side of a deep, tapered bowl to form the titular whirlpool. Chunks of squid and slices of red, green, and yellow peppers had been arranged along the spiral’s convolutions to form curving rays that radiated up from a pyramid of jalapeno cheese-stuffed olives that sat at the bottom of the whirlpool.
And for Reynard: the Cobolaro Delight, a cobolaro being a taxonomically unique ocean-bottom life-form resembling a seven-inch-high coral-colored barrel. Beneath their leathery hides, their bodies were soft and tender and segmented like an orange. The meat of the cobolaro had the color and consistency of scallops and a flavor many compared to sea urchin. There were various ways to serve cobolaro. In this case, the chef had opened out the segments like the petals of a flower and slathered them with melted halfling barrow cheese topped with nasturtium leaves. In the heart of the flower was a peeled and hollowed-out clambon—a tropical fruit whose closest relative was the pineapple—with half a dozen asparagus stalks protruding from the central hollow like cut flowers in a vase.
“I’d heard that genuine Nioedoan cuisine was as much about the visuals as the taste,” Reynard said after Yif had departed. “But I’d always figured that was just hyperbole.”
“Trust me, most of it isn’t like this. It’s only classy places like this that still go to these lengths.” She picked up her silverware, then hesitated, staring at the food. “It’s almost a shame to eat these. They’re like works of art.”
“Yeah, well, speak for yourself,” Reynard said. “I’m hungry enough that my stomach’s overruling my aesthetic sense.”
He speared a cobolaro segment with his fork, tore it free of the rest of the “flower,” and raised it high above the plate to break the strings of cheese still attaching it to its fellows. When he slid the segment into his mouth and the mix of flavors hit his taste buds, he shut his eyes and his mouth curled into a delighted smile.
“Oh, this is amazing,” he heard Solace say, her words muffled by squid and noodles.
He opened his eyes and looked at her. She too was smiling in delight, and her jaw wriggled a little as she rolled the food around inside her mouth, working it with her tongue to find the most succulent alignment of food and palate.
Shutting his eyes again, he began to chew, but slowly and gently, wishing to prolong the enjoyment as much as possible. The segment broke apart between his molars, the meat and cheese and greens crushed together, flavors deliciously mingling. Once the segment had been thoroughly pulped, he swallowed it down, then sighed in satisfaction and opened his eyes once more.
“Wow,” Solace said. “Why have I never eaten here before?”
“The first time,” he said, “but definitely not the last.”
“More!” she said with a laugh, and plunged her fork into another knot of noodles.
They ate and ate, every bite as fantastic as the first. Eventually their plates were empty save for a few shiny smears of oil.
Yif reappeared and began to pile the empty plates on a tray.
“Are the gentle-entities still possessed of sufficient appetite and stamina to enjoy the ecstasy of one of our many superlative desserts?”
“Hm.” Solace pondered this with a small frown, then looked at Reynard. “Are you getting anything?”
“Gotta try something. If the main course is that tasty, I’m dying to know what the desserts are like.”
“Oh, what the heck? I’m sure I can find a little more room in my belly.”
Yif handed them dessert menus. The choices were many, and all sounded scrumptious. Reynard wound up ordering the quackberry pie, Solace the gnomish butterscotch-shrimp ice cream.
“Well,” Reynard said as Yif departed, “this has been quite a night. I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a date this much.”
“Me either,” she said with a happy grin. “I had a great time.”
“Great enough to warrant a sequel?”
The grin actually got bigger, though he got the impression she was trying hard to rein it in a bit. “Sure. That’d be fun. Unless, of course, you royally screw up in the next twenty minutes.”
He bent his lips into an exaggerated pout. “Does that mean I can’t fingerpaint on the tablecloth with my quackberry pie?”
“I think that would be a deal-breaker, yes.”
“I shall try to refrain then.”
She giggled.
“When’s a good time for us to meet again?” he asked.
“Actually, I have tomorrow off. Would tomorrow work for you?”
“Tomorrow’s perfect. I’m off, too.”
“We could make a day of it.”
“Sure. But, uh, seeing as how I’m still new to this area, do you have any ideas about what we could do? Frankly, at the risk of sounding touristy, I’d be kind of keen to see some of the notable local sites.”
“That would be great,” she said. “There are all kinds of interesting places to go. There’s Makina Park, where everything’s artificial: the birds, the trees, the dirt, everything. They’ve even got fake worms in the fake dirt. It’s crazy. Then there’s Dreamland Arcade, which is, like, fifteen floors of the world’s coolest shops. That’s always my favorite place. There’s Anjulie’s, the theater on Machine Street, though I have no idea what’s showing there right now. And there’s plenty of cool historical sites. There’s the Hexagon, where the Central Computer was originally located. It’s mostly underground, and it’s enormous. There’s one room that’s half a mile long and contains nothing but rows and rows of databanks. And then just east of the city there’s the remains of the Astropolis Platform, which is w
here the robots launched their spaceship city right before the War of Unification. The city’s turned the place into a big museum with info on all the prominent robots who left and stuff like that. I was there once, and it was fascinating. I’ve always wanted to go back.”
“That sounds interesting. Let’s go there.”
“Trust me, you’ll love it.”
Yif reappeared with dessert and the check. Reynard goggled at his gigantic slice of pie. The bulging crust couldn’t contain the plump purple quackberries, which spilled out across the plate in glistening heaps.
“Well, you certainly get your money’s worth,” Solace said, regarding her own dessert with trepidation. The three scoops of ice cream in her bowl were the size of grapefruit. “I don’t think I can eat all this.”
“Me either. But I sure aim to try.”
He stuffed a forkful of pie into his mouth and savored the way the tender berries burst between his teeth, their sugary juices splashing across his tongue.
“Oh, this is fantastic,” he said.
“Trade bites?” Solace said, eyebrows raised hopefully.
“I don’t know. I’m not sure I like the sound of butterscotch-shrimp ice cream.”
“It’s delicious.”
“You could be saying that because your misery wants my company.”
“Oh, come on. Trust me.”
“All right…”
They scooted their plates into the center of the table. With his spoon, he shaved off a curl of ice cream, while she forked up a couple of quackberries and a chunk of crust.
Reynard had expected the ice cream to be tolerable at best, but he should have known better than to doubt gnomes’ culinary skills. Gnomes were renowned for mixing unlikely combinations of flavors and somehow making them work, and the butterscotch-shrimp ice cream was no exception. As he licked his spoon clean, Reynard made a mental note to look up the ice cream on the T-Net and see if it was available for sale anywhere.
Much to his and Solace’s amazement, they managed to eat every last morsel of their desserts, though the last few bites were separated by increasingly long gaps and prefaced by deep breaths.
When they were done, Reynard paid the tab, and they headed out. As they passed through the lobby, the maître d’ inclined its topmost appendage toward them and said, “Thank you for choosing to dine at Bistro 27. We hope to see you again soon.”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure you will,” Solace said with a laugh.
Outside, night had fallen, though it was hard to tell: The megalopolis blazed with lights of every shape, size, and hue. The countless towers’ lighted windows formed glowing grids of squares and rectangles; holographic signs and billboards enacted their preprogrammed animations; the headlights of cars and antigravity trains and flying robots streaked about. The city burned so brightly the night sky above it was dull gray, with not a single star visible. Even the full moon was only a faint, milky spot in the sky above Jimjin Tower’s tallest spire.
“Can I walk you to your car?” Reynard asked.
“Um, actually I walked here. I live only a few blocks away.”
“Oh. Well, in that case, can I walk you home?”
She opened her mouth, paused for a long moment, eyes probing his, then smiled and said, “Sure. Thanks. That’d be nice.”
“All right then,” he said, a little surprised he hadn’t had to talk her into it.
She led him north to the corner of Seldon and Strontium Lane, then east down Strontium. Seldon’s classy shops and eateries were replaced by apartment buildings that started out just as classy but grew less and less so the farther east they went. After only four blocks, they were in a neighborhood where peeling paint hung from window frames and most of the cars parked in the lots were more than twenty years old. Once again Reynard found himself wondering if she had lost her fortune.
“We’re here,” she said, stopping in front of a six-storey building whose holosign read “Friendly View Terrace.” The sign flickered every few seconds, suggesting a dying drive.
“So, the Astropolis Platform tomorrow,” he said. “Followed, perhaps, by another lovely dinner?”
She nodded. “Sounds good. And maybe after dinner we can even hit a couple of clubs. There’s a place on Transformer Parkway I’ve always wanted to visit. I hear they’ve got their dance floor rigged up with antigrav plates, so you can actually dance on air.”
“Ooh. That sounds like fun. We have to do that.”
“It’s a date, then.”
“It’s a date.”
They smiled at each other in silence for a moment.
“Well,” he said softly, leaning toward her a little. “I guess this is good night.”
“I guess it is.” She didn’t draw back as he leaned farther forward, his shadow enveloping her.
He watched her face draw closer and closer till it filled his vision. Her eyes, looking both eager and scared, fixed on his then on his approaching lips then back on his eyes.
He felt her warm breath on his chin and smelled that unique and irreproducible scent of hers that always reminded him of exotic spices, and then their lips touched, lightly at first, tentatively, as if each of them were afraid of harming the other, but then pressing harder, more boldly, flesh pushing and flattening against flesh, their lips both advancing and yielding at the same time.
He tasted clams and butterscotch, the residue of dinner concentrated in her lips’ tender crevices, a final tiny feast for him, much like the one he knew he must be providing her. And behind that were other flavors: the faint tang of salt from her skin, the coppery taste of her saliva, the hot, earthy traces of chewed food wafting up from her mouth’s cavy depths.
She pulled away, took a breath, licked her lips. Inside his shadow, the whites of her eyes were gray as she looked at him.
“I have to go,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“Pick me up here tomorrow at, say, three o’clock?”
“Sounds perfect.”
She nodded and regarded him a little uncertainly, as if she wished to say more but wasn’t sure if she should. Then a smile broke through her uncertainty.
“Thanks again,” she said. “I had a great time.”
“Same here. I can’t wait till tomorrow.”
Her smile ballooned into a toothy grin that made her look like a teenager. “Me either.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
He strode away. Though he didn’t look back, he knew she was standing there watching him till he was out of sight.