The town of Fairfield huddles on the plain, only from the bluffs across the river seen as much of anything. This small Midwest ville, sparsely peopled, is rarely developed above two stories. From sundry quaint buildings, signs of life emerge, barely. The easy pace of complacence ordains that change comes subliminally, if at all. A ghosted sorrow haunts three wanderers’ return to the tranquilly boring sprawl.
   To the east, centered for use by tributary towns on a low, parenthetical plateau, is a tiny bus depot. It stuns new and old arrivals alike with its view – three hundred sixty horizon degrees of the flattest hypno-monotony. A road and corn and nothin’.
   A bus pulls in. Scattered travelers home in on the diesel beast of collective transit. An obese mother is harried in her hurry to board with her plump darlings.
   The lone disembark, a big, muscular man, handsome but uncool, squirrels by her family. He’s troubled, too honest for his own good, his square jaw tight. His short blond hair misshapen by sleep, his shirt and cargo pants wrinkled, his broad shoulders droop. He dons a windbreaker from his duffel bag as a chill breeze picks up.
   One other stands there, he sees, a woman. Embroiled in a restless want, she types on her smartphone then puts it in her pocket.
   The man asks, “Are you waiting for a ride?”
   Her head tilts slightly, away, her long dark hair wafting gently in the wind and falling back in fine straight align. Her practically feminine, plum, fleece jacket is nice, but not so new, and her all-purpose shoes are well tread. Apart from that and her rolling suitcase, it’s hard to say much.
   “Excuse me …”
   She finally turns. Her earthy beauty is mellow, and her tan skin is soft and supple. Her face is blandly pinched, her mood, cryptic. Her large, chestnut-brown eyes are intense and soulful, yet distant.
   “Am I waiting for a ride?” Her expression becomes more friendly and his confidence grows. “Aren’t you Brent?”
   “How do you –”
   “Brent Holland?”
   Pleasantly mystified, he smiles. “Yes, exactly. Do I know you?”
   “Probably not. I went to Fairfield High.”
   “You went to ‘Flunkfield’?”
   “I didn’t go to Felicity and Perpetua.”
   Brent chuckles. “Did we ever meet?”
   “No, we didn’t.” She shows her hand and he takes it. Her grasp is strong. “I’m Allison Kujoh.”
   “Cujo –”
   Preemptive, “I’ve heard all the jokes, let’s not go there.”
   “Uhh –” with embarrassment for juvenile guilt, “Then how did you –?”
   “I was a junior editor on the yearbook. Only one senior from your class was in it more than you. Didn’t you get skipped ahead a couple grades?”
   “I did. I’m glad somebody remembers my promising youth. It seems like at least two lifetimes ago. And now,” through distaste’s afflicted veil, “I’m back,” then catching himself, “No offense.”
   “I don’t particularly enjoy coming back, either.” Playfully, “Was I supposed to marry my first boyfriend and settle down to this?”
   “It’s not so bad. A little behind the times, maybe.”
   “More than a little. But that’s okay, I’m not exactly an animal-face filters on social media type.”
   “Me neither. Can we start over?”
   “We can try.” Allison’s attention lists to the fields.
   Brent takes the wrong hint. “So you’re waiting for a ride?”
   “Yes. I’m waiting for my cousin. And what brings you back to our fine cultural Siberia?” she asks.
   “A.k.a. the Whitebread-basket?” This wins him a giggle. “I was in the Peace Corps, in Ecuador. But I quit, and now I don’t have anyplace else to go.”
   In murky reminisce, “You followed through on your plans from high school … weird. What happened? Did something go wrong?”
   Impressed by her recall, Brent’s dejected by his own. “For me? With me? I couldn’t see what good I was doing anymore – what good any of it was doing.”
   Allison’s brow creases. A peculiar but ageless melancholy emerges, as if tears climb from her core in prelude to their fall. She says nothing. Brent seeks insight in her silence, but he too is absorbed inward.
   She faces him. “Brent, maybe if you have some time – well –” Her mouth dips in contrary curves.
   “Allison,” he grins boyishly, his blue-gray eyes appealing, “I’ve got all the time in the world.”
   Her impassive mask is back in place. “Maybe not. Is that your cab?”
   He’s puzzled but the pieces fit. Barreling down the empty road, the taxi, probably the only one in Fairfield, stops an itchy arm’s length adjacent.
   “I guess it is. You sure I can’t give you a lift?”
   “Yeah, my ride’ll be here soon. I’m sure.”
   “Do you want to get a cup of coffee sometime?”
   “I don’t drink coffee.”
   Stymied but not stumped, “Ah …”
   An overloud and by its wheeze overused horn blasts through the farmscape, jarring the pair. Brent, with superimposed patience, “Driver, go ahead and start the meter, I’ll just be a second.”
   “I already did. Can you hurry? I got other orders too.” Brent directs a ‘you’re so full of it’ glare and the cabbie huffs, “Let me grab your bag,” as he lurches out.
   Veering back to Allison, Brent discovers a note and her invitation. “Call me after Thursday and you can take me out for tea.”
   A smile warm with friendship attests his good intention. “Even if all we can get is Lipton’s?”
   The driver interjects, “They got all kinds of loose leaf at Java & Juice.” He loads the duffel in the trunk. “New place, next to the Square, she’ll love it. Can we go?”
   “You must be the only person in the whole county in a hurry,” Brent accuses.
   “Buddy, I appreciate the business. What I appreciate more is enough business to feed my family. Well, to feed me and my dog. Dog food ain’t cheap.”
   “Yeah it is.”
   “She’s a big dog and I buy her the good shit. So no, it isn’t.”
   Brent raises his hands.
   “Now, unless monsieur would like to see the wine list …”
   “I’m more in the mood for a beer.”
   “I got whiskey in the trunk.”
   In spite of the contest, Brent laughs, “I was kidding.”
   “I’m not. Can we go?”
   “I’ll call you,” Brent promises Allison as he sits in the cab.
   “After Thursday,” she reiterates.
   Brent tilts out the window. “Why?”
   She bites her lip, determined to contain her hushed anxiety, “Humor me.”
   “Okay. It was nice –” The grinding of rubber on asphalt curtails his farewell.
   The sedan is a mile off before Allison replies softly, “You too.”
   She inhales and lets out a sigh as flat and empty as the plain. She breathes deeply, in and out, and again, and begins stretching her arms in wide arcs, centering.
   Allison shuts her eyes and breathes even deeper. And again, even slower. She bends, about to sit on the platform, when a shuffle spooks her. Scanning the depot – nothing. Wait. A hint of someone skulking behind a strut of the shelter.
   Taut query, “Hello?” The stranger freezes. No response. Distancing herself around the post, she glimpses a hooded figure as it shifts in hiding. “Are – are you waiting for the bus?”
   Another vehicle closes in from the west. Allison moves to the road’s edge, desperate for the coming car. The lurker, covert and noiseless in the dying day, seems poised to strike and she gasps with fright. She moves to the highway as her aunt’s old Honda Odyssey stops there.
   “What are you doing, Allison?” her cousin asks from the minivan.
   Allison rushes to the passenger seat. “Someone’s stalking me!”
   “I don’t see anyone,” her cousin vouches, bewildered but calm.
   “Go, Nancy. Just go!”
   “We’re going, sweetie.” She flips a U-turn and accelerates toward town.
   As the minivan bolts, the figure, his demeanor not hungry, but hunted, steps from the depot, tipping back his hood, watching with unease the Odyssey’s departure.