This was true. Almost, Maine, is just far enough north that the northern lights appear there fairly frequently. And—good thing—because the woman had forgotten to renew her passport, so getting to Canada would have been tricky, and she didn’t have the time—or money, really—to get to Alaska, so Almost was her best option for doing what she needed to do.

“And the time is right: there’s no moon so moonlight won’t obscure them,” continued the woman, and she looked up at the sky, and East did, too, and together they tacitly confirmed that there was, indeed, no moon. “And—most important,” the woman added, “solar activity is at an eleven-year peak right now, so everything’s in order, and boy, you have good sky for it. It’s so huge here,” she gushed, “and dark.” The woman shifted focus earthward and scanned the horizon. “And, you know, it’s flatter here than I thought it would be. I thought it’d be more mountainous.”

“Nah. Mountains are way south and west. We just have some hills. And woods. And farms.”

“Oh.” They took in the landscape the woman had just described. And then the woman asked, “So what kinda farm is this?”

“Potato.”

“Oh, yeah, you said.”

“And broccoli,” added East.

But then he remembered it wasn’t a potato and broccoli farm anymore and was about to correct himself when the woman asked, “So you’re a farmer?”

“No. Used to be. But not anymore.”

“Oh.”

“I sold off most of my land a few years back after my folks died,” explained East. His mom and dad had hit a moose on their way home from a Maine Potato Board meeting in Presque Isle and only the moose survived. And East still wasn’t quite over it. “And now,” he added, “I’m a repairman.”

“Oh.”

“I fix things,” he explained. And then immediately wished that he hadn’t. Because it’s pretty obvious what repairmen do.

And then the woman snorted. And seemed to be laughing.

“What?” asked East, hoping she wasn’t laughing at him. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing. It’s just—you’re not a lobster man.”

“Um … nope.” East stifled a laugh, because the woman said lobster man—instead of lobsterman.

“And I guess I thought that everyone from Maine was a lobster man and talked in that funny way like they do in Maine. But … you’re not a lobster man, and you don’t talk that way.”

“Nope.” East was smiling a little, eager to debunk a common misconception. “You’re not Downeast. You’re up north. And we don’t really have an accent up here.”

“So I’m hearing.”

“And, plus, the ocean’s a couple hundred miles away, so … it’d be an awful long ride to work if I was a ‘lobster man,’” continued East dryly, making sure to say lobsterman the way she did—like it was two words—because he wanted the woman to know he was having a little bit of fun at her expense.

“Yeah, I guess it would be,” laughed the woman, rolling her eyes at herself, and then they laughed together at her misconceptions and at his dry wit until they realized they had nothing else to say.