I did not want this altercation to happen in public, but I couldn’t step out of the line. I’d been standing for almost four hours already, and if I left I’d lose my place and have to start all over the next day.

“Please,” I said again. “I need to see her.”

Rae laughed with condescension. “Oh, you need to see her? Is that so? That’s nice for you, yeah? And are you really insensitive enough to think that she needs to see you?”

It was a fair and cutting question, one I hadn’t contemplated, and I lost my breath thinking about it.

Jessie said, “Dude are you a Danko stalker or something?”

Rae took her eyes off of me to address Jessie. “Sir, I need you to step back and mind your own business or I’ll have you escorted out too.”

Jessie raised his hands and backed away. “Whoa OK just chill lady.”

“Rae . . .” I sighed.

“No, Joe. Don’t ‘Rae’ me. You weren’t there. You’d conveniently disappeared, yeah? I was there. I saw what she went through. She couldn’t eat. She couldn’t sleep. All she did was draw weird pictures of forest fires and listen to The fucking National. For a while I wasn’t even sure she was going to finish the selfies project. Meanwhile, you were off doing what? Gawking at trees in Wyoming.”

“Montana.”

“Excuse me?”

“I was in Montana, not Wyoming.”

“Whatever. You were gone. Didn’t give a fuck. So I don’t care if you need to see her, she does not need to see you. Got it?”

I tried to tell myself her words were not chipping away at my resolve, but when I said, “I give a fuck, Rae,” my voice sounded feeble.

I thought about screaming October’s name and wondered if she would hear me, if she would recognize my voice, if she would care.

Rae again raised her phone thing. After taking a closer look, I decided it resembled a pager from the nineties.

“I’m giving you ten seconds to turn around and walk out the door,” she said. And then she started counting backwards.

And I almost did it. I almost aborted the mission. But I thought about how Cal believed this was a good idea, and I trusted that. Not to mention that if I left, if I failed to speak to October, Cal would assume I’d chickened out, and I was better than that now. I had to be.

Rae was down to 2.

“Wait.” I was trying to think of the right words, the right tone to sway her. “Listen. The thing is. You’re right. You are.” I put my hand on her hand, the one holding the phone pager thing, and said, “But are you sure?”

She recoiled from my touch, and I felt awkward about having touched her. “Am I sure about what?”