“And what else happens?”

“Not much.”

“You mean you don’t hear angels singing or saints playing harps and stuff?”

“No. Sometimes I don’t feel anything.”

“But sometimes you do?”

“Sometimes.”

“What do you feel?”

“Oh, lots of things, I guess. Hard to give it a name, there’s too much going on at once inside me.”

“What did you feel when you touched Joseph?”

“Him?” She furrowed her brow. “Scared. That’s what I felt. A lot of fear and terror all wrapped up into one big ball of . . . I don’t know. Something.”

Coot looked at Joseph. “You mean he was scared? Joseph don’t never seem scared of anything.”

“Either he was scared, or I was,” she said.

“Then what happens, when you touch someone? What comes next?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Nothing, really. Either they believe something is gonna happen and it does, or they don’t and they walk away cussing me. But I don’t do anything.”

“Something happens if they believe?”

“Yeah, but not always what they think will happen.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, sometimes it’s kinda like we’re alone together, just me and that person, just for a moment in time. We’re like old friends, meeting after being apart from each other for a lifetime. It’s a kind of goodness. And sometimes that’s all that happens.”

Coot brushed a piece of hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear. He could feel the goodness she spoke of. He felt very forward for having touched her. He wasn’t sure what had made him do it. But she didn’t seem to mind.

“You make it all sound so simple,” he said.

“Piece of cake,” she said.

Coot squeezed her hand. “What do you feel right now?”

She looked at her hand and smiled. She set her mug on the floor and placed her other hand on top of his. She closed her eyes. A faint smile worked its way across her face. He could see the freckles that stretched from one side of her face to the other. Wonderful freckles.

“I feel like you are a friend,” she said.

Coot was tired of being a friend to beautiful women. He wanted to be more than that. He wanted to be Gary dadgum Cooper for once in his life.

He leaned forward to kiss her. He felt unsure of doing this, it was so forward of him. But instinct took over. When his lips touched hers, he could feel how soft they were. He touched her face. And she returned the favor. When her hand touched him, it was so hot it was almost as though someone had set a skillet on his cheek.

He pulled away.

“What is it?” she said.

He looked at her hands. He touched them with his own hands and felt heat radiating from them.

“Your hands,” he said. “How are you doing that with your hands?”