Page 4 of Honeyfires

"I'm sorry?"

"Library science." She said it again. "813.54. American fiction. Female protagonist. Complicated relationship with institutional loyalty and a boot with duct tape to hold it together."

I stared at her. "Did you just Dewey Decimal me?"

"How did it feel?"

I pretended to shudder. "Violating."

"Good. That's the system working." She tilted her head. "You're chaotic sincere, by the way. That's the subgenre. You could have gotten a cooler-looking tattoo. You chose Rilke."

I had nothing. It was too accurate, and she'd gotten there too fast.

"Is that a strawberry on your bag?" I said instead.

She glanced down. "Yes."

"Why?"

"Thematically consistent." She said it like I'd asked why the sky was blue. "It's a coquette bag."

"Is that French for—"

"It's a style. Vintage, romantic. A little flirty." She smoothed her skirt. "The visual language of a woman who has a window seat."

"Do you actually have a window seat?"

"I have a window seat, a reading pillow, and a blanket I will describe to you as cream-colored." She paused. "The real name of the color is Antique Bridal Whisper."

"I'm sorry, Bridal what?"

"Antique Bridal Whisper. From a paint catalog. I found it and knew immediately. I don't make the rules."

"Antique Bridal Whisper," I whispered dramatically.

"It sounds unhinged, I know. But it's the right color." She shrugged one shoulder. "Sometimes the universe hands you the answer in a ridiculous wrapper."

I was standing in a hallway with my groceries and my duct-taped boot and my fire-line embroidered jacket, and this woman had just said that completely sincerely, and I felt something happen in my brain that I had no framework for and absolutely no time to address.

"How long did the whole—" I gestured at her "—situation take."

"The aesthetic? Three years, ongoing. Today? Forty-five minutes. The hair was a whole thing."

"It looks good," I said.

She went slightly pink. Hadn't seen it coming. Neither had I, honestly.

"You're staring again," she said.

"I'm processing."

"Again, I see. You process quite a lot."

"Some inputs require more—"

"You've received: duct tape criticism, a Dewey Decimal classification, the ghost neighbor situation, and the information that my blanket sounds like a dead bride. What else does your brain need?"

"I genuinely don't know," I said. "I've never run this particular program before."