“A while back,” he starts, “one of our biggest clients, you may have heard of them . . .”
I pretend to search for something in my backpack for a full minute.
“. . . and not only that, they wanted to sue for—get this—fraudulent roofing! Hand to God, I can’t make this stuff up. So anyway . . .”
I sigh as loud as humanly possible.
“. . . here’s the best part—it was the mother’s company! Can you believe that?”
In the face of Poncho Man’s unyielding torrent of absurd babble, I raise my hand.
“Yes?” he says, looking somewhat amused.
“I’m sorry, but you seem to have missed the indicators.”
“Indicators?”
He’s smiling again, just like under the canopy back in Mosquitoland. God, this guy’s a creep. I can’t quite place the why, but I know the what: there’s something there, something more than just your run-of-the-mill obnoxious bozo. Either way, it’s time to dole out a heavy-handed serving of honesty. Brutal and bold, Mim-style.
“Yeah, listen, I really don’t have the energy to point out each of the ways you’ve shirked the social cues of . . . well, society, so I’m just gonna say this: I don’t care, man. I’ve fake yawned, slow blinked, loud sighed, and pretend searched. I considered murdering you, as well as a variety of suicides. Now I’m going to put this in a way I know you’ll understand: you stole my friend’s seat, and I’d rather die than listen to you speak. My case, counselor, is airtight.”
He’s not smiling anymore. “And my sentence, Your Honor?” he asks.
I lean my head against the chilly window just in time to watch the sun finish its descent. “A conversational restraining order.”
ARLENE IS, UNWITTINGLY, one hell of a saboteur. A few minutes after I issued Poncho Man’s restraining order, the old gal stopped by to get her purse. Which would have been fine, except she used my name. About a dozen times. Mim this, Mim that, even a couple How do you spell Mim agains, which I was just like, Really? Needless to say, after she returned to her seat, my case for silence crumbled.
“You a big reader, Mim?” asks Poncho Man, flipping the page of his book. “Food for the brain and the soul.”
The sun set a while ago; most passengers are asleep, but a few, like the idiot next to me, are reading with their overhead spotlights. It’s raining again, even harder than before, which makes for an unnerving ride. The windshield wipers on a Greyhound are hypnotic, completely different from those on a car or a truck—like sandpaper on tile.
“So delusional,” whispers Poncho Man. His voice trails off, hangs in the air like a feather. For the first time since my closing argument, I look in his direction. The book he’s reading is thin, the binding strung with a loose red yarn, frayed at the top and bottom of the spine.
“What did you say?” I whisper, still staring at the book.
He flips the cover closed, and I see the title: Individualism Old and New.
“It’s this philosopher,” he says, “John Dewey. The guy is really chappin’ my ass.”
It’s not the same book. It’s not the same book. It’s not the same book.
He holds the book toward me. “You interested? Happy to loan.”
Ignoring his offer, I turn to the window and search for the blurred landscape—but it’s nighttime now, too dark outside, too light inside. All I can see is my own face, the sharpened lines of my jutting features, my long dark hair. I am more opaque than ever.
I shut my eyes, and in the pure nothingness, Poncho Man’s book scrapes a vague childhood memory from the inner rim of my brain. Traveling through synapses and neurotransmitters, the memory is whisked into a delectable roux, now ready to serve: My mother is sitting in her yellow Victorian reading Dickens. I am a tender age, seven, maybe eight, walking around with a milk crate, pretending to buy groceries from our living room. “And how much for the generic pine nuts?” I ask in a feminine voice. “Those are on sale for eighty-two dollars,” I answer myself gruffly. Dad, sitting at his rolltop, assuming I hear nothing because of my age, peers over his Truman biography and frowns. “You’re not worried, Evie?” he asks. “About what, Barry?” says Mom. “I mean, look at her,” whispers Dad, closing his book. “She’s acting like a . . .” His voice trails off, but Mom gets the gist. “She has no siblings, Barry. What do you expect?” Dad again, his frown more pronounced, his whisper more intense: “This is exactly how it started with Iz. Voices and whatnot. Just like this.” Mom closes her book now. “Mary is nothing like Isabel.” My father opens his book again, buries his head in it. “Your lips to God’s ears.”
“Mim?” Poncho Man’s voice pulls me back to the present.
“What?”
He raises an eyebrow and half smiles, apparently amused. “You sort of went all . . . catatonic on me. You okay?”