The Blue Coyote Café has the best muffins in town. Blueberry, apple, poppyseed, whatever—they’re all outstanding. But they also have melt-in-your mouth scones. And terrific chocolate chip cookies. And those light, crunchy, delicately flavorful biscotti to die for. Mat can’t make up his mind.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have anything,” Laura suggests. “Maybe just coffee.”

“I think the fruit flax muffin,” Mat tells the girl at the counter. She smiles at him as if she knew all along that would be his choice. Laura smiles too. “You always get the fruit flax muffin,” she says. “It’s like a no brainer.”

“I do not,” Mat insists.

Meanwhile Laura’s plain toasted bagel is ready. As usual they take their paper plates and their cups of decaf coffee and two bottles of ice water to the outside tables, despite the sweltering late morning heat of this early August day, and as usual they share. The fruit flax muffin is excellent as always. Mat’s half of it is gone in less than a minute. The bagel is toasted perfectly. Mat tries to savor the bottom half. It’s gone in two minutes. Ah, but the hot coffee lasts. And the refills are free. A few minutes later, Mat goes inside to replenish their cups.

“Thanks,” Laura says. She breaks off a piece of her bagel and with a smile sets it on Mat’s paper plate.

Mat is determined to enjoy this gift. He takes as small a bite as he can. He chews as slowly as he can. He notices, across the way, a teenage girl standing in the slim shade of the shelter on the train station platform opposite the café. Nice legs. A skirt so short it’s almost not noticeable. And beneath the skirt ... Wait a second, Mat thinks. He’s determined to be polite. He makes a point of looking at the girl’s blue flip-flops. At her bouncy green camisole-style summer blouse, which shows the adorable swell of her ... Mat’s eyes move to the girl’s long brown hair and the bottle of water she has pressed against her forehead.

“Wouldn’t that make a cute picture?” Laura says.

“Huh?” Mat says, but he knows he’s been caught.

“Go ahead,” Laura says. “It’s all right.”

Mat takes out his cellphone, aims and snaps. The girl twirls, and Mat snaps another. She bends at the hip, and Mat snaps that picture, too. It occurs to him that she’s posing for him. He’s suddenly embarrassed. He looks at Laura.

“Did you get her?” she says.

“I don’t know,” Mat says. “I think so.”

“Good,” Laura says. “Uh-oh. Looks like she’s got company.”

Mat looks. An older man in white shorts and a white shirt is making his way towards the girl and her slim patch of shade. He gets within a few feet of her, then stops short. He pulls something from his back pocket. It must be a train schedule, Mat thinks. And while he’s thinking that, he notices that a second piece of paper has come out of the old man’s back pocket and fluttered to the ground behind him in the crook of the shelter. The man hasn’t noticed. He keeps on reading his train schedule. Or pretending to read it, while he peeks at the girl, who has now popped the top of her bottle of water and is drinking—long gulping swallows. Mat can’t help staring.

“You should have taken a picture of her drinking,” Laura says.

“Did you see what happened?” Mat asks.

“What?” Laura says.

“That man,” Mat says. “The one in the white shirt and shorts. When he took his train schedule out of his back pocket, he dropped something. A piece of paper. Maybe it was his ticket.”

“You think so?”

“I don’t know,” Mat says. “It’s possible. He didn’t notice.”

“Hm,” Laura says.

“Maybe I should go over and check,” Mat says. “If it’s his ticket, he might get halfway downtown before he realizes he doesn’t have it.”