They found beer in the refrigerator, in her kitchen. Miller beer in clear bottles. Anna had never tried it. There wasn’t a bottle opener, so James knocked the caps off on the porch railing. “These beers are thirty years old,” he said. “Look at the labels.”
Anna looked. She didn’t know what beer labels looked like these days. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to be thirty-four years oldnow.Or thirty years ago. She wasn’t fixed in time, really. It was another thing about her that was undecided.
“I hope I’m going somewhere with a porch swing,” James said, kicking the swing into motion. “What sort of book are you meant for, do you think?”
She shrugged.
“You haven’t had any clues, over all these years?”
“I don’t think she knows,” Anna said. “I think that’s one of the problems. I think she built me before she knew how to build a story. So I’m more of a daydream than anything else.”
James nudged her with his elbow. “Don’t say that.” He took a sip of his beer. “You’re too well developed for that.”
“Well, thank you,” she said. “But … it’s a cheat, I think.” She took a second. She might as well tell him, he’d be gone soon. It would be nice to tell someone. “I’m pretty sureallof this is autobiographical.”
He shrugged. “Everything is autobiographical, right? Like my campus?”
Anna pursed her lips. “Mmm. It’s different. There’s borrowing details and settings and traits. And then there’s … Well. Then there’s …” She looked down at her beer. She didn’t really like the taste. She was going to offer it to James when he finished his.
“There’s you,” he said, watching her.
She nodded. And then she sighed. And nodded some more.
“That’s got to be an advantage,” James said softly. “For getting in.”
“I think it was, at first,” Anna said, earnestly looking up at him. “You know how you shove yourself forward when you’re young? But then, over time, maybe you don’t want to show people all that. Maybe there are things that are more valuable if you keep them to yourself.”
“You can’t be sure of this,” he said. “You’re just theorizing.”
“I guess I’ve had plenty of time to tell myself stories.”
James smiled at her. He looked down at her lap. “You don’t like beer?”
“This,” she said, holding up the bottle, “is my first beer.”
He clinked his bottle against hers.
“And my last,” she said. “You can have it.”
He smiled and took it. “At least I won’t be leaving you here alone with a drinking problem.”
“You won’t be leaving me here alone,” she said.
The next day, they took another walk through the fields, and Anna showed James the tree she’d used as a playhouse when she was a little girl. It was more real than his office. You could even see the patterns in the bark.
The next day, James woke up with a last name. MacIsaac. He was giddy about it. So Anna was giddy, too. She called him “Mr. Mac-Isaac.” They celebrated with lemon cake.
In the middle of his second slice, he said, “I’m not a sociologist anymore. I do something for the government.”
“She’s working on you,” Anna said. “Right now.”
They both sat still at Anna’s table, waiting for James to change before their eyes. His sweater was replaced with a white button-down shirt. The top button was undone. She could see the freckles on his chest.
But he didn’t disappear.
The next day, crazy old Renee got called up. (Or down.In.) Renee had been here for years. She wasn’t even acharacter.She was just a tank top with an obnoxious laugh. She sounded like a donkey.
James had never met Renee, but he was devastated by the news.
