“Yeah, you actually do,” Mike said. “You sigh a lot.”
“I do not. Perhaps I exhale a little loudly sometimes, but I certainly don’t sigh.”
“You sigh,” she said. “You are a sigher and—” she looked at Mike again—“you stare. So, you’re a starer. And I can only assume that all that staring and sighing indicates that the two of you want to, you know, dosomethingthat meant more than nothing that could have been something, again.”
A moment’s silence.
“And, from where I am literally sitting, I see no reason why you shouldn’t do that something. It’s clear you like each other, or you wouldn’t be acting like an old, angry married couple and moping about like this.”
“We’re not acting like a married couple!” we both said, at exactly the same time.
Emelia laughed. “Sure, and that’s why you’re finishing each other’s sentences now, too. Besides, you met on a fence.”
“What’s that got to do with it?” I asked.
Then she leaned in, she looked at us closely and mysteriously, and, in a voice that one would expect to hear from some kind of dramatic, pretend psychic, she whispered, “Oh, I think it has everything to do with it . . .everything.”
At that, Ash burst through the door. “I have it! I have his name.”
