She knew she’d been a pain in the ass to him in the past, she said, and she’d done some real soul-searching and could see that a lot of this was due to the insecurity of being a woman in a working world dominated by men, and also some stuff from her childhood, with her mom, who was always denying her use of the superior telescope, but anyway, she wanted Tim to know that she’d resolved to try to be more helpful to him in the future, for real. She’d brought him this truck, this little garbage truck, to symbolize, well, her cleaning up her act, or whatever.

She put the little garbage truck down on the desk, so he could see how cool it was. See? The tiny bag of fake garbage on the back popped right out.

Then she rolled the truck over to him and he caught it.

Sparrow

SPARROW

She was small and slight and her eyes were dark beads on either side of a beaklike nose. She moved quickly, head down, as if, we sometimes joked, scanning for seeds. She had a way of seeming to dart from place to place. She had a way, too, of saying the most predictable things. When a truck went off the road in front of the little store where she worked, she said, “That’s too bad. I hope no one was hurt.” When it started to rain, whether drizzling or pouring, she’d say, “It’s raining cats and dogs.” When someone said the sandwich she was eating looked good, she’d say, “It’s a good sandwich.” If someone said the sandwich didn’t look good, she’d say, “Yeah, not great.”

If you found yourself in a car in which she was riding and someone suggested rolling down a window, she’d say, “Some fresh air.” Or you’d pass a guy riding a horse and she’d say, “A horse.” If someone, goading her slightly, asked, “You like horses?” she might say, “Well, they are pretty,” and if that person, goading her further, asked if she’d like to someday own a horse, she would, because that possibility was so out of the question (she didn’t make much at the store and rented half a duplex), just go quiet and blink, blink, as if something happening outside her cage had startled her into stillness.