"Yeah, I guess so. Let's go," she says, making no move, though, to get up.

"By the way, where are we?" I ask.

"I have no idea," she says. She cranes her neck and sweeps the place with her eyes. Her earrings jiggle back and forth like two precarious pieces of ripe fruit ready to fall. "From the time I'm guessing we're near Kurashiki, not that it matters. A rest area on a highway is just a place you pass through. To get from here to there." She holds up her right index finger and her left index finger, about twelve inches apart.

"What does it matter what it's called?" she continues. "You've got your restrooms and your food. Your fluorescent lights and your plastic chairs. Crappy coffee. Strawberry-jam sandwiches. It's all pointless-assuming you try to find a point to it. We're coming from somewhere, heading somewhere else. That's all you need to know, right?"

I nod. And nod. And nod.

When we get back to the bus the other passengers are already aboard, with just us holding things up. The driver's a young guy with this intense look that reminds me of some stern watchman. He turns a reproachful gaze on the two of us but doesn't say anything, and the girl shoots him an innocent sorry-we're-late smile. He reaches out to push a lever and the door hisses closed. The girl lugs her little suitcase over and sits down beside me-a nothing kind of suitcase she must've picked up at some discount place-and I pick it up for her and store it away in the overhead rack. Pretty heavy for its size. She thanks me, then reclines her seat and fades off to sleep. Like it can barely wait to get going, the bus starts to roll the instant we get settled. I pull out my paperback and pick up where I'd left off.

The girl's soon fast asleep, and as the bus sways through each curve her head leans against my shoulder, finally coming to a rest there. Mouth closed, she's breathing quietly through her nose, the breath grazing my shoulder at regular beats.