The sunlight, its heat intensified by the windshield, lay upon their laps, upon Fern’s gloved hands, their knees. Fern remarked that they should have eaten the hard-boiled eggs right away—the smell reminded her unpleasantly of school lunches. A car passed them slowly. Two Chinese were sitting in the front of the dusty black Packard.

“They’re going to the convention,” said Fern. “I bet.”

“Comrade delegates from the Charlie Chan branch.”

“That’s chauvinistic…”

Max opened the door and got out. He stretched and yawned, watching the girl. She didn’t stir. He felt a faint prickling of his skin. Her bare legs were crossed, stretched out before her. The thick tweed suit she wore surprised him—it must be the only such suit in Southern California.

“Hello,” he said softly.

Her eyes opened. She smiled instantly and pressed closer to the tree, then her hand went up to her face to touch her own smile. She got to her feet as though there weren’t enough space to stand straight.

“We thought you might be in—” He hesitated. The word trouble had occurred to him, but in the face of her shyness it seemed too personal. “Difficulty,” he finished, explaining the we by waving back to the car at Fern, whose face could be glimpsed in outline through the dusty windshield. “You’re a long distance from anywhere.”

“I’m on my way to San Diego,” she said. “I’d gotten a ride from Los Angeles. But the man let me off here.” She looked back at the tree.

“Here?”

She said nothing. Her face was blank. He wasn’t going to get an explanation.

“We’ll take you,” he said. “We’re going to San Diego.”

“That’s so kind,” she said, smiling again, her tone formal. Then she seemed overcome by uncertainty, looking from him to the car.

“Fine,” he said, hearing a touch of stridency in his own voice, wondering at it, wondering why the girl was disconcerting.

“I’m meeting a friend there,” she said, her voice low.

The man who had dropped her by the road must have tried to do something to her, Max thought. She’d said “gotten a ride,” hadn’t she? “My friend is in the merchant marine. I had the name of the ship written down, but, I don’t know, I must have lost it. It was a simple name. I think it’s the Matson Line. Matson?” Now, she was almost whispering.

“There is such a shipping line,” he said. A bird trilled very close by. He and the girl both looked off at once into the trees. They listened, but the sound did not come again.

“My name is Max Shore,” he said, “and that’s Fern Diedrich there in the car.”