Nonny waited for me to finish my bite and answer.

“It wasn’t my ultimate best day ever or anything,” I said.

She tucked her hair behind her ear and settled into the couch, looking at me. She waited again.

“I … I tried sitting by some new people at lunch today,” I said. “One girl was wearing a NASA shirt. She was cool. Her name was Charise.”

“Good for you!” Nonny said.

“I don’t know about that,” I said.

“Yeah?” she said.

“I think maybe they’re already friends together,” I said.

Nonny put her arm on the back of the couch and her long hair spread over her shoulder like a waterfall. She kept watching me, waiting for when I was ready with the right words. Sometimes it really was easier to sit with a square of sunlight or talk to the spirit of a great astronomer than people in real life. At least then I never said the wrong thing.

“Were you talking to a friend?” I said. “On the phone? I remember you had a lot of friends at school.”

“I like talking to people,” Nonny said. “Especially you.”

“What do they talk to you about?” I said. “I mean, you’re so smart about it. It’s like talking to you is magic and then they’re happy again.”

Nonny laughed. “I don’t know about magic,” she said.

I was already feeling better simply being with her, so I knew Nonny had some kind of magic no matter what she said. “Oh, come on, tell me the secret spell.”

“No spell, but I guess there’s something I do in my head. Kind of a trick maybe?”

“A trick?”

“It’s sort of a trick for having lunch with new people, but it works for people you already know, too.”

I took a sip of tea and put the mug down. I wanted to pay attention to this. “And this is why people are always calling you? Like your friends always calling and asking you for advice?”

Nonny did a quiet smile. It’s easier for me when I think of quiet smiles or loud smiles. It makes it easier to know what the smile means.

“Maybe,” she said.

I crossed my legs and faced her. “Tell me the trick!”

“Well,” she said. “You know how sometimes you want to get to know somebody, and it’s hard to know what to ask them? And maybe it’s easier to talk about things you know, because they might know about those things, too?”

I almost choked on my toast. That was exactly what had happened with Lunch Table Girls.

“That happens for you, too?” I asked.

“Then there’s times when someone is telling you about something really difficult they’re going through and you’re not quite sure what to say? When you’re pretty positive nothing you say will help or make anything any better?”

I realized I was twisting the hem of my pants without noticing. This wasn’t something I’d talked a lot about before, not even with Nonny. “Even when they’re not saying hard things it’s sometimes like I always say the wrong thing back.”