Annie sat down on the opposite side of the booth and waited for him to notice.
It took a lot longer than it should have.
“Hello?” he said, confused.
“Hi.”
He saw the coffee urn and successfully associated it with the person he had just spoken to, rather than concluding she materialized in the seat somehow, which would have been cooler but far less likely.
“I really don’t want more coffee. I’ve had enough for now, thanks.”
“Oh, I know. You’re a reporter.”
He looked past her and down the length of the diner, perhaps in anticipation of discovering someone capable of explaining Annie.
“You couldn’t possibly be Joanne.”
“No, Joanne isn’t here.”
“So I was told.” His eyes went back the laptop, which was the kind of thing people did when they wanted to signal in a less-rude sort of way that the conversation they were having was over. It actually was rude, but it was a socially permissible rude. It had the effect of making the person they were dismissing seem like they were the rude ones.
Annie didn’t have a real sense of shame, though, so it didn’t work. This could have been why people told her things.
“She doesn’t actually exist,” Annie said.
“Joanne of Joanne’s Diner doesn’t exist?” he said, not looking up. He did stop typing, though.
“Now you have it.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Annie. Annie Collins.”
“How old are you?”
“Sixteen.”
“And you work here?”
“Just part time. I don’t wait tables, though, mostly I just pick up and feed Bart, answer the phone sometimes. Less during the school year.”
“Well that’s fascinating.”
She decided he was older than the college-age impression he first gave off. The way to tell was by looking at people’s necks. He was at least thirty.
“I work in the library too. Have you seen the library yet? It’s down at the south end of Main. We have municipal buildings on each end and right in the middle. It’s very feng shui. Probably not what the founders were thinking, but still.”
“I’m nearly positive feng shui has nothing to say about city planning.”
He had one of those voices that made him sound smart. Clean elocution, crisp word-choice. Someone people might respect but simultaneously dislike. She decided he probably wasn’t really a journalist.
“I agree, but most people around here don’t know that. Or what feng shui is, and if they did they probably wouldn’t know it’s mostly crap.”
“Is it?”
“I think it’s probably something invented by an interior decorator to charge more per hour.”
He looked up from the screen, which was a great triumph for Annie.
“How old are you again?”
“Sixteen.”
“And you’re Annie.”
“That’s good.”
“Annie, maybe you can tell me why you’re sitting here?”
“Because you’re a reporter.”
“According to whom?”
“Joanne.”
“I’ve never met Joanne. And you said a minute ago she wasn’t real.”
“I did, but that doesn’t mean Joanne didn’t tell me you were a reporter.”
“Are you in a special needs class of some kind, Annie?”
“What’s your name?”
“Ed Somerville.”
“Ed short for Edward?”
“Edgar.”
“I can see why you’re rolling with Ed. What time are you supposed to see the ship?”
He coughed, looking in five directions in two seconds, and closed his laptop. She hoped he remembered to hit save on whatever he had going on there.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Annie Collins.”
“Sixteen year old Annie Collins.”
“You keep saying it like you expect me to get it wrong. Don’t I look sixteen?”
“You probably do. It’s a tough age to pin down in some people.”
“Well I am. Ask anyone. Most folks know me around here.”
“Why is that?”
“I dunno. I’m that kind of girl, I guess. Not in a bad way. Probably not in a bad way.”
“I really don’t understand what’s going on.”
“Well, we haven’t had a reporter around in a while. What’s your angle?”
“My angle?”
He was definitely not a reporter.
“You answer questions with questions a lot, that’s a terrible habit. Your angle, for the piece you’re here to write. I assume write and not telecast because I don’t see any cameras and, I mean… well, you don’t look like on-air talent.”
“Thanks?” His expression suggested he thought maybe he was losing his mind.
“So is it: Sleepy spaceship town returns to normal, or Local community embraces alien fanatics, or what?”
“I don’t have an angle yet.”
“Of course you do. Oh! I bet it’s one of those big long form pieces, right? The Atlantic Monthly or something like that?”
“Something like that, yes.”
“Those always sell well. But that isn’t it either, is it? You’re just agreeing with me so I’ll stop guessing.”
“Why do I have to have an angle?”
“Because if you don’t have an angle, you’re not here for a puff piece at all, you’re here for some other reason. And that would mean something happened to report about, and we all know that can’t be true because there hasn’t been anything new about the ship since the day it landed. And if there was something new, well… I can think of a lot of people who would want to know all about that.”
He stared at her for a few beats.
“You’re sixteen.”
“Haven’t turned seventeen since the last time you asked.”
“It’s possible a sixteen year old is attempting to blackmail me right now, so I wanted to re-establish that.”
“I understand.”
“So I’m clear: you think I’m a reporter, and that I’m going to be getting a close-up of the only thing in this town anyone cares to see, and that I’m doing this because something’s happened involving that very thing. And you’d like me to know if I don’t… do something for you? You’ll tell everybody this. Do I have that correct?”
“I would never say blackmail, that’s a terrible word. I’m an innocent young woman.”
“Right. And what is the thing you would like for me to do?”
“I am offering my services,” she said. She more or less decided on this the second she said it.
“Come again?”
“Not those services, dude. God.”
“What kind of services?”
“As I said, everyone in town knows me and I know everyone. A reporter such as yourself would benefit from having a person such as myself around.”
“For information?”
“For all sorts of things. Everyone here’s been interviewed a dozen times. If you want to get good answers instead of the usual answers, you need someone there to call bullcrap on them when they say it.”
“I think I can detect my own… bullcrap… just fine, thanks.”
“Oh, yeah? Maybe you can ask Joanne when she gets here.”
“You’d like to be my tour guide.”
“Sure, you can call it that. I prefer translator. Like in The Killing Fields.”
“Northern Massachusetts is a poor substitute for Cambodia.”
“But you see my point.”
“I do,” he said. “Except you’re bluffing.”
“I am?”
“Oh yes.”
The front door chime rang, and as was the case every other time this happened, Ed looked at the door. In this instance, though, he saw someone he was expecting. Annie turned around to see a man she didn’t recognize. He was in civilian clothes, but he had the sort of crispness she’d seen many times before in members of the army.