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I shook my head. “No, a bus.”

“Seniors’ safari?”

“Excuse me?”

He blushed. “You know—trip for older folks, kinda a package deal? The, uh, guided tour?”

I smiled. He matched it, eager to make amends.

“The guided tour,” I said. “Yes. Exactly.”

Americans have a phrase for everything, as I have often noticed, though few of them ever fit. This particular one amused me. It was neat, easy, and—to a point—accurate. Too simple, of course.

Just like everything else.

“So your bus broke down, and then—?”

“They sent for a tow truck, but I could not afford to wait. So I asked for a refund.” I smiled again, remembering. ?

??They did not want to let me go, not out here, in the middle of the desert. But I can be—persuasive.”

“I’ll bet,” he said, so softly he thought I couldn’t hear him.

There was obviously more to him than met the eye. Whether it merited a closer examination, however, had yet to be decided.

“Why, hell,” he exclaimed. “I clean forgot to introduce myself. Les Budgell, ma’am.”

He waited.

“Vassila.”

He frowned. “That’s Russian, ain’t it?”

Give or take a few miles, I thought. But I gave him the old lie, for convenience’s sake: “Ukrainian. I still have relatives there.”

And I might. Anything is possible.

Thankfully, he let it go at that.

Minutes passed. Another road sign flashed by, all white light like an empty mirror set to catch the moon, its words smeared to one big blur.

“Where were you in such a hurry to get to, though?”

I closed my eyes again. I find conversation wearying at the best of times, and this one was fast becoming like having someone rummaging inexpertly around in the back of your mind while he thought you weren’t looking.

“Oh, everywhere,” I said. “And nowhere. I am taking a—working holiday, so to speak. I want to see it all.”

“What all?”

I shrugged. “America.”

He laughed. “That might take some time, ma’am.”

“It already has.”

Being a nomad by nature, it took me many years of painstaking research to finally decide which country I wanted to become a citizen of. After all that rootless freedom, the idea of pledging my allegiance to any kind of flag was intoxicating. I came to America open-handed, all other options exhausted, like a true immigrant. Prepared for anything. Expecting it, in fact.

So far, I have not been too disappointed.