{Samara}
Samara couldn't stop thinking about the dinner, which was a problem, because thinking about the dinner didn't get anything done.
She lay on her bedroll in the dark, the tent flap open. She stared up at the canvas and ran it all back. The big red one had clapped her on the back hard enough to bruise. The purple one had smiled the whole time. The salt cod had nearly killed her.
And then there was Vessa, who'd handed her a wine cup she couldn't say no to. She'd sat across the table being so warm that, for about an hour, Samara forgot she was working at all.
And that was the part that scared her, the forgetting.
Then there'd been the porch. Vessa had dropped the whole act out there, the bright voice and the toes and the little game, and just said it plain.
No angle. The door's open whenever you want it.
[She liked me. She said it plainly. Nobody ever says it plainly.]
