She nodded. I kept glancing at her and when our eyes met we smiled politely at one another and looked away.

“Do you have to work today?” I asked.

“No. Not till tomorrow morning.”

“Have anything planned?”

She said no, and without the effect of alcohol, her voice was even softer than it had been the night before. I’ve always felt more at ease with shy women, more confident, but that was only after becoming comfortable enough to be unfazed by the long silences. Then, however, there was only misery in them.

“Want to do something?”

“Like what?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe see a movie or something.”

She thought about it a moment. “Yeah, sure. I really need to go home and shower and change, though.”

I took her plate when she finished and she lay back down. Her sweatshirt had lifted, revealing two inches of her belly. I felt the urge to press my lips to it and give her a raspberry to get her laughing, but when I jumped on the bed, I quickly lost the courage to and instead dropped beside her and placed my arm in the gap beneath her neck.

“How do you want to work this?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

A train thundered by.

“Right on cue,” I said. “Damn trains are horrible. I’m finally starting to get used to them. Did they keep you up?”

“Not at all. I can sleep through anything.”

“I wish I could.”

Carolyn yawned deeply and turned and burrowed into me with her face in my neck. My chin rested on the top of her head. A few minutes later her lips began to pucker and I knew she was out cold. I wasn’t tired and instead lay there with my eyes wide open. My arm began to fall asleep but I didn’t want to disturb her by removing it. Eventually she twitched, rolled away from me. I turned on my side and propped my head on my hand, watching Carolyn sleep, happy that I could reach over and touch her.

After a while I rose and sat at the desk. I looked out the window and studied the blank rear of the building across the tracks. Beyond it, to the east, I could see a faint sliver of the watery blue smudge of Lake Michigan. The snow kept falling and I sat for a time wondering if it was also falling further east, in Ohio. With my hands behind my head, staring pensively out the window, I heard Carolyn stir behind me. I turned around. She was wide awake, and by the thoughtful look on her face, I felt certain she’d been watching me for a while.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yes, of course. Why do you ask?”

“You looked very sad staring out the window just now. Are you a sad person, Stratton Brown?”

“No, not really.”

“What were you just thinking?”