We had just had pancakes. “Yeah,” I agreed. My backpack was heavy, and I sort of wanted to go home, but somehow that felt like it would be quitting. I wanted to get the joy back that we’d felt earlier in the day. I couldn’t get the tackling hug out of my mind. I wondered if there was a way I could get another one, or even something better.

“Let’s do one more store, maybe?”

“Sure,” they said. “How ’bout that?” They nodded across the street to a place called the Hidden Fern—a plant store by the looks of it, with lots of big green plants towering in the window, some varieties of which I recognized from the Lily Pad. As a place to visit, it wasn’t necessarily my first choice—we had enough plant life back where we were staying, and I did sort of want ice cream, in spite of what we’d just said about pancakes—but it didn’t matter to me that much. What I really wanted was to go wherever Ros went.

“Okay,” I said finally. “Whatever you like.”

The Hidden Fern turned out to be pretty beautiful. A bell rigged to the door rang when we walked inside, and we were instantly plunged into a miniature indoor jungle. From the green depths, a voice of an employee called “Hello” and asked if we needed any help; Ros assured them we were okay, just looking. They slowly began a loop through the store, reverently touching the plants’ green leaves while I followed behind, trying not to feel antsy. Plants were pretty, but they weren’t exactly my thing.

“This is the same one that Henry has,” Ros said, touching a leaf. “Theirs looks like it’s in much better shape.”

“We’re already killing his plants? Perfect. We’ll be kicked out by July.”

“I’ll double-check how much watering we’re supposed to do,” Ros said. “We’ll come up with a way to fix it, don’t fret.”

In spite of the plant’s troubled health, I was thrilled to hear Ros reassure me that it would all be okay—it sounded like they were already feeling better, my Jess Orlando–shaped gaffe on the sidewalk already forgotten. We passed through the green to a back patio, where all sorts of different planters were grouped. There seemed to be millions of terra-cotta pots heaped together, and cheaper white plastic ones, and some beautiful, enormous ceramic ones, which Ros tried to lift just for the hell of it and found they could not.

“I had no idea houseplants were such a heavy business,” they said. “I’m feeling bad about how weak I am.”