She decided to leave the Caddy at home. And for a whole day, her life was boring again, just missing the bus and not connecting with her friends and not having time to grab dinner in the middle of running errands. The rain started as she was heading home for the night and she had forgotten her umbrella, and there was no place to buy one. And of course she had to run ten blocks to catch the bus—which left just as she got there. She waited another half an hour, under a disintegrating canopy, for the next bus, and when she staggered on board, drenched as a sponge, the only empty seat was next to Laurence.

“Oh shit,” Laurence said. “You are fucking soaked. Jesus, I’m so sorry. That is fucked up.” He gave her his nice cotton hoodie to use as a towel. She tried to say it was cool and he didn’t have to do that, but he kept shoving it at her.

“Thanks.” Patricia patted herself with the hoodie as best she could. “At least the heat wave finally broke.”

“This bus doesn’t go to your place, does it? I mean, you have to change buses,” Laurence said. Patricia admitted that this might be the case. “Well, I understand if you need to get home right away. But there’s a bar up here on the right that has an actual open fireplace, and they serve hot toddies and stuff. We ought to get you warmed up as soon as possible.”

The bar had a “hunting lodge” theme, complete with slabs of wood covering the walls and faux animal heads coming out of one wall that squicked Patricia at first. But they got a primo spot in front of the fireplace, and the scent of mesquite and woodsmoke was a rain antidote. The stereo played an album of acoustic covers of Steely Dan, featuring a bluesy female mezzo-soprano, and Patricia guessed it was called Steely Danielle.

Laurence brought Patricia a mug of hot chocolate and a shot of nice whiskey, which she could consume together or separately, her choice. She drank most of the hot chocolate and then sipped the whiskey to burn away the milky sweetness. The whiskey was sharp in the way that really nice cheese is sharp. She started to feel comfortable in her own skin again.

“I suspect I’m being punished for leaving my Caddy at home,” Patricia confessed.