“No, no, I love it, really, it’s a charming idea,” she said acidly. “Something wrong with your past, just haul it into the shop and have it fixed. Better yet, get rid of your past altogether. I suppose that’s how someone like you ends up with a name like Storm.”

Which made him throw back his head and whoop like a spotted hyena. Which almost made her despair. Was there no way to hurt the man’s feelings?

“All right,” he said, chuckling away like a clown. “All right. You can’t fix the past. But you don’t kill yourself over it either. Like I said, if the past isn’t past, what is? I mean, jeez.”

She could only roll her eyes. It really was beyond frustrating now. Her head was getting all stuffy with crying, and her throat hurt and her temples throbbed and he was sitting there with that gigantic self of his, saying, “If the past isn’t past, what is?” and at this point even she wasn’t sure whether this was pure American cobblers or a nugget of Buddha-like wisdom.

“Well, you tell me,” he went on. “What are you supposed to do with your problems if you don’t fix them? Put them in a museum, make them a holiday? What am I missing here?” He was off the window again, his voice rising, his hand wagging at her. “I mean, how could you do a stupid thing like that, a girl like you? What’re you, nuts or something?”

“Who on earth do you think you’re talking to?” she finally blustered, appalled. She now saw clearly that she had attempted to hang entirely the wrong person. “Stop … doing that with your hand.”

He stopped doing that with his hand. He looked at his hand as if he hadn’t noticed it was there before. Then he threw it up in the air. “Man!” he said.

“I mean, who on earth do you think you are? I’m sure you’re not even supposed to be in here.”

He nodded. “You’re telling me.” Turning back to the window, muttering, “You oughta see the security out there. I felt like Obi-wan Kenobi sneaking around the Death Star.”

The man was such an idiot, she almost laughed. He glanced over his shoulder at her.

“What was that? Were you just laughing?”

“No, of course not.”

“Are you sure? I thought you were laughing.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“Well, all right.”

For a while then, he stood planted there, his back to her. His back in the denim jacket, hulking, solid, thick. Like his brain.

Sophia had now stopped crying finally. In fact, she was beginning to feel better all around, more like herself. Cool and ferocious.

So she said, “Well, thank you so much for coming to see me, Mr. Storm.”