When you least expect it, he’s been told. Stop looking and when you least expect it. He stares out the window counting house numbers, a game he’s played since youth. Pick a number and imagine yourself the home’s owner. 458. 460. 462. The streetcar rolls past a house with a worn couch on the front porch and a stack of soaked boxes leaning in the corner. He picks another number far ahead, spends the time considering the woman who sits two seats ahead reading a new paperback, something with a mustard cover. He’ll look out for it, the book with the mustard cover. 1236. When the house appears, its tidy front lawn is dotted with trees. Is that a Japanese maple? What does he know about trees? He looks again at the reader who pulls a stray hair behind her ear, her finger hovering by her lobe as if she’s forgotten to lower her arm, because she has. Yes, he thinks, the trees could be her job. And the kids can rake the leaves while he stirs the milk for hot chocolate.
READER
Caucasian male, mid-30s, with short blond hair, wearing a green hooded jacket, brown leather shoes, and deeply creased black jeans.
The Blue Light Project
Timothy Taylor
(Knopf, 2011)
p 246