Page 2 of Honeyfires

She squinted, visibly rearranging her thoughts. "Preppy."

I actually laughed out loud. "Okay, I'm sorry—what?" I gestured at myself. The motorcycle jacket, the ripped jeans, the Doc Martens held together mostly by stubbornness and old loyalty, the tattoos snaking up my arms and neck like smoke finding its way out. "What about this says yacht club to you?"

"You could be ironic about it," she said, completely unperturbed. "Maybe you're secretly in a polo league and the leather is a bit."

"Yeah. My Harley's moored next to the sailboats."

She giggled, and my pulse stuttered. "Okay. You're right. You look more motorcycle gang than country club."

"Motorcycle gang? That's a little harsh."

She shrugged one exquisite shoulder. "Maybe I read too many romance novels."

My heart sputtered like an old exhaust pipe. There was no way, no possible way, that this woman standing in this hallway in this dress, in this body, with this voice that sounded how a summer afternoon felt—liked women.

No way. Statistically improbable. The universe wasn't this generous to people like me. People like me got the cold ends of things, the empty parking lots, the long drives home with the radio off.

We didn't get this: pretty girls with hopeful eyes and a very dorky, entirely charming sense of humor.

"Give up?" I asked.

Her eyes lit up, sparkling. "Absolutely not." She studied me with more concentration than my very serious station captain at my last performance review, and I had the sudden sensation of being read. "Etta?"

I raised a brow. "I wish."

She gasped, pressing one hand to her chest like I'd told her the ending to something. "Oh, I should have gotten that immediately." Then, breathily and entirely off-key, she sang the first few bars of At Last directly into the hallway, to me, a stranger, without a single ounce of embarrassment. Her voice was imperfect and warm and completely, entirely genuine.

I stared at her.

She was the most ridiculous person I had ever met in my entire life. Both tours with rowdy combat soldiers overseas included.

"I know," she said, clicking back into focus. "Petra."

"Finally." I pressed a hand over my heart. "I was starting to think you'd finish the P's in the phonebook and circle back around."

She jumped once, clapping her hands together, delighted by herself, delighted by me, delighted by the whole improbable situation as though it were already a story she loved. "I knew I'd get it! And honestly? You look exactly like a Petra."

"Do I."

"Strong. Mysterious." She paused for what appeared to be dramatic effect. "Rocky."

"Rocky."

"Petra means rock in Latin. It suits you." She said it simply, the way people state things they believe in. The desert is hot. The sky tonight will be full of stars. You are exactly what you look like.

I stared at her. "You know Latin."

"Library science degree. We absorb an unfortunate amount of useless information." She smoothed the hem of her dress, completely composed, a woman entirely at peace inside her own particular orbit. "Though apparently speed-guessing nicknames isn't part of the curriculum."

"To be fair, Preppy was a low point. Even by experimental standards."

"I was testing the waters! There's a whole subculture of people who dress ironically. I couldn't rule it out."

"You thought I was doing ironic contrast. With the tattoos."

"The tattoos especially could have been ironic."

"These ones?" I held up my arm. The tattoos were of a hawk in flight, the Florian Cross for Station 19, a compass, a line from Rilke. The kind of marks you made when you were trying to write something down permanently, because everything else kept slipping away.