Krishna gave him a long, considering look. “What are you, anyway?”

“I’m a writer—for now. Used to have a few shops.”

Krishna blew a plume of smoke off into the distance. “That’s not what I mean. What are you, Adam? Alan? Andrew? I’ve met people like you before. There’s something not right about you.”

Alan didn’t know what to say to that. This was bound to come up someday.

“Where are you from?”

“Up north. Near Kapuskasing,” he said. “A little town.”

“I don’t believe you,” Krishna said. “Are you an alien? A fairy? What?”

Alan shook his head. “Just about what I seem, I’m afraid. Just a guy.”

“Just about, huh?” he said.

“Just about.”

“There’s a lot of wiggle room in just about, Arthur. It’s a free country, but just the same, I don’t think I like you very much. Far as I’m concerned, you could get lost and never come back.”

“Sorry you feel that way, Krishna. I hope I’ll grow on you as time goes by.”

“I hope that you won’t have the chance to,” Krishna said, flicking the dog end of his cigarette toward the sidewalk.

Alan didn’t like or understand Krishna, but that was okay. He understood the others just fine, more or less. Natalie had taken to helping him out after her classes, mudding and taping the drywall, then sanding it down, priming, and painting it. Her brother Link came home from work sweaty and grimy with road dust, but he always grabbed a beer for Natalie and Alan after his shower, and they’d sit on the porch and kibbitz.

Mimi was less hospitable. She sulked in her room while Alan worked on the soundwall, coming downstairs only to fetch her breakfast and coldly ignoring him then, despite his cheerful greetings. Alan had to force himself not to stare after her as she walked into the kitchen, carrying yesterday’s dishes down from her room; then out again, with a sandwich on a fresh plate. Her curly hair bounced 

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