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He blinks. “You were sleeping.”
“You could have woken me.”
“You’re right. I could have.”
“And?”
“I didn’t.”
I draw a deep breath. Press my lips together. Grit my molars. Doesn’t matter, I tell myself. Very soon we will be out of here, and nothing about him will be relevant to me ever again. In a few weeks, he’ll sail away, and that will be the end of him.
“Well, then. What have you found?”
“Just poking around.”
“And?”
He lifts a shoulder in a sort of shrug. “I just want to mess around a little, see if I can get this joint through to a spot where it’s not touching anything.”
The tent’s joint is near half a meter long. If he can’t manage to poke it through…I inhale deeply.
He reaches into his pocket, tossing something my way. “Catch.”
I scramble to snatch something small and flat before it hits the ground.
“My phone,” he says. “You can turn it on with the button on the right side. It’ll want a password. Put in one, one, one, nine, one, seven. Swipe your thumb across the screen until you see an app—a square that’ll say ‘Kindle.’ There are books there. Find something to read and don’t be worried. I won’t move the rocks around unless I’m sure there’s not much else on top of them.” He taps his head, flashing me a grin. “And I’ve got a helmet.”
A retort slams through my head—“Do you think I care?” But it’s too much, even for me in my present agitated state. Instead I say, “You’re absurd.”
“If absurd means genius.”
“Most certainly not.”
He laughs, holding the joint up. “I’m not looking like a genius over here? You sure?”
“I am absolutely certain.”
He chuckles. “Go on, turn the phone on.”
He feels he needs to distract me? Between glaring daggers at him, I feel around the side of the small, flat thing and press a button. Its screen lights up, revealing a picture that’s so pristine, I can’t help gaping at it. It’s a sailboat in a harbor, and it’s stunning.
“There’s a circle at the bottom of the phone’s front. Press the circle button.” I do, and at the bottom of the screen appears a message: “Slide to unlock.”
“Slide your thumb across the lock screen.”
I try, but nothing happens.
“Ever used a touch screen?” He steps slightly toward me.
What’s a touch screen?
“If you haven’t, you want to drag the tip of your thumb over the screen. Not too hard, but hard enough.”
I try again, and the phone reads: “Enter Passcode.”
“Passcode is one, one, one, nine, one, seven.”
I punch in the numbers, and I see another picture: this one of a group of grinning kids in Red Sox T-shirts.
