He laughed. “I just thought I’d say hello.”

“Oh . . . That’s nice. Hello.”

“So, um . . .” He cleared his throat. He hadn’t really thought this through. “Do you live here? Under the bridge?”

“I guess I do,” she said. “Do you live up there?”

“Along the road,” he said.

“That’s lucky.”

“It is.” He brought his hand up to shield his eyes again. “Are you—I mean, I hope this isn’t impolite—”

“Go ahead.”

“Are you a troll?”

She laughed. “Because I live under a bridge?”

“Well, yeah,” he said. “I don’t mean to—”

“No, it’s okay. I guess I am a troll. I live under bridges and call out to innocent boys.”

“I’m not—I mean, you didn’t call out to me.”

“I will next time,” she said. “Just to say hello.”

“That would be nice,” he said. Which was the wrong thing. He should have said something jokey.

She cleared her throat. He guessed she had a throat.

“Well,” he said, “I suppose I should go to work.”

“To your job?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you like it?”

“I really do,” he said. “It makes me feel useful.”

“What is it?”

“Oh. It’s kind of hard to explain. It’s like—I monitor a section of the road. It’s maintenance. Resource management. There’s a little bit of graphic design.”

“That does sound useful,” she said. “For people who use the road.”

“It is!” he said. “Well, anyway . . . it was nice talking to you.”

“You, too.”

He walked away from the ledge, smiling, and took his phone out of his pocket.

“Hello!” The man leaned over the railing.

He waited.

“Hello?” he called again.

The womanish thing rose up out of the mud. “Oh, hello. I wasn’t expecting to see you.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t sure you’d be around this time of day.”

“I’m here pretty much all the time.”

“Oh. That’s nice. I mean . . .” He faltered. “Is it nice? It’s nice for me. To find you here.”

She smiled at that. He could see her teeth. She had teeth.

“I brought you something,” he said, “to thank you.”

“You already said thank you.”

“Well, I know, but I was stopping for coffee anyway. There’s a Starbucks just down the road.”

“You brought me Starbucks?”

“Do you not like Starbucks?”

“No, of course, I do. Just, um . . .” She was looking up at him from her patch of mud.

He looked down at his hands, at the two paper cups. “Oh,” he said. “I see what you’re getting at . . . I could drop it, I guess?”

“You could,” she said. “That seems like something you would do.”

He laughed. She laughed, too.

“I wish I could just bring it down to you . . . ,” he said.

“Too bad this isn’t a wishing well,” she said, another joke. Then she said, “Actually this might have been a wishing well, once upon a time.”

“I can’t believe I was so stupid,” the man said. (He’s not a prince, but he might as well be.) “I’d bring it down to you if I could, if there was a path.”

“I believe you,” she said.

He believed her.

“What are you doing?” she shouted.

It was the next day, at the same time, and the man was climbing over the ornamental hedge that separated the road from everything else.

“I’m just trying to get over these shrubs.”

“Be careful, they just sprayed!”

“I’m being careful,” he said, snagging his pants on some thorns.

“You’re going to spill your Starbucks,” she said.

“It’s your Starbucks,” he said.

“Well, then you really shouldn’t spill it.”

He laughed. His foot was stuck in some branches. It didn’t hurt. The thorns didn’t hurt either. But it was embarrassing. The whole thing was embarrassing. He felt silly. “This is why no one leaves the road,” he said to himself. “Maybe I’ll just leave the coffee here for you?” he called. He couldn’t quite see her from here, from the middle of the hedge. He’d never really seen her.

“I won’t be able to reach it,” she said. “You may as well take it to work—maybe someone else will drink it.”

“Yeah, okay,” he said. “I guess it’s the thought that counts?”

“Did your mother tell you that?”

“Did you come back to visit that hedge?”

It was the next day. He was midway through the bushes. She was already laughing at him.

“I’m bringing you Starbucks!” he shouted.

“I’ve heard that before,” she said.