I want to leave, but my feet seem stapled to the ground. He is bare-chested and his pajama-bottoms hang dangerously low. He pulls them up and shrugs. Was I staring?
‘I better go,’ he says. ‘Nice meeting you.’
‘Bye, Dane,’ I answer, and miraculously my feet are released and I continue on my walk.
When your life has had few events to occupy it, it’s amazing how a simple encounter can seem like an entire three-act play. I replay it over and over in my head while I continue on my way to Mr Bender’s house. Dane. White house. White pajamas. White teeth. There was nothing frightening about it, except the way I was frozen on the street.
Persona
Finding his house is easy. Left. Left. Left. A ten-minute walk at most. He is surprised to see me but invites me in.
‘Coffee?’
‘I can’t drink. I mean I don’t drink coffee,’ I say.
Mr Bender stirs cream into his. He offers me juice, milk, bagels, and muffins. I say no to them all. ‘I’m on a special diet,’ I tell him.
‘Allergies?’
‘No. Just special.’
He nods. It is a nod that says, yes, I know. What does he know? He says there isn’t a thing you can’t find out about your neighbors on the Net. Has he found out something about me?
‘Did you get your pictures of the pine serpent?’ I ask.
‘Yes. Dozens. I’m trying to choose the best ones to send to my agent.’
‘Did you get some pictures with the birds?’
‘A few. But the few were fairly amazing. I got lucky.’
‘May I see them?’
‘The pictures?’
‘No. The birds.’
Our footsteps make whooshing sounds on the rain-soaked ground. Puddles spot the pathway into the garden. With his long stride, Mr Bender steps over them, but I step in them. ‘I don’t know how many there’ll be,’ he says, ‘with the storm and all.’
All I want is one.
We sit on the log bench. He’s right. There are not many. Only two, the rest still huddled away from the storm. But the two that come will land only on his hand.
After twenty minutes, he puts the birdseed away and we walk back to the house. He pours himself another cup of coffee and I shuffle through photos of the pine serpent.
‘Don’t worry about it, Jenna.’
What makes him think I’m worried? And why should it matter so much whether a small brown bird lands on my hand anyway? What makes him think I care?
‘Some things take time,’ he says.
Too many things take time. I’ve lost so much time already. A year and a half might as well be a lifetime for me. ‘I don’t have time to spare,’ I tell him.
He laughs. ‘Sure you do. You’re only seventeen. You have lots of time.’
I set the pictures in my hand down on the table.
I never told him I was seventeen.