Page 24 of Goode Vibrations

“Dairy. Why dairy?”

He shrugged. “I dunno. They sell dairy products? Just what we call the little convenience stores like that.”

We ate his magic tacos, which were not fancy but were delicious and filling; by the time we were done and things were cleaned up, it was getting dark.

Errol climbed into his van and dug around through his stuff, coming up with a sleeping bag, two pillows, and a tightly rolled fleece blanket bound by a small bungee cord. The sleeping bag was the super expensive mountaineering kind, but the pillows seemed suspiciously like they’d come from a hotel; I couldn’t have said what gave me that impression, but they were not pillows from anything likehome.

When I mentioned it, he laughed sheepishly. “Yeah, I sorta nicked ’em from a hotel in…where was that? Bergen? Oslo? Norway, somewhere. They’re nice pillows, and I’d forgotten mine, so I packed ’em up and took ’em with.” He held up the sleeping bag in one hand and the blanket in the other. “You pick. I’ve used both and they’ll both keep you plenty warm, ’specially on a night like this.”

I looked around. “We’re just gonna sleep on the ground?”

“Yeah. Bit firm at first, but you get used to it.”

I made a face. “A bit firm. Thegroundis a bit firm, you say?”

“Yeah nah.” He stomped on the earth, no hint of sarcasm on his face. “Nice plush grass here, no rocks. I mean, you want to get fancy about it, you could go cut some branches and make a little nest.”

I snorted. “How do you say it? Yeah, nah.”

“You say it in all one go—yeah-nah.” He laughed. “But that’s not really how that one works. It’s…well, it’s complicated. It can mean heaps of subtly different things, but it usually doesn’t mean yeah, no like you used it just then.”

I sighed. “Oh.”

He laughed all the harder. “No worries, you’ll get it.”

“I’ll take the blanket,” I said, reaching for it.

He unfurled the sleeping bag and lay it in the grass near the van, sat in the open doorway of the van and unlaced his boots, which were well-worn Salomon hiking boots—he tossed the boots into the van and shucked his socks off, which he carefully laid out beside the boots. He was wearing gray-and-blue board shorts with a plain heather-gray muscle shirt, which combined with the hiking boots gave him an air of someone who could hop onto a surfboard and ride some waves, chuck on his boots again and then go free-climb a mountain face. He’d been wearing his Wayfarers till the sun set, and then he’d shoved them up onto his head, using them to hold his hair back from his face.

I noticed he was wearing a necklace made of shark teeth; each tooth separated by a complicated knot of the hemp the necklace. Errol being Errol, I just knew there was a fantastically, unbelievably cool story to go with it.

Realizing I was standing with the blanket and pillow in my hands, blatantly staring at him, I flung the blanket onto the ground a bit more forcefully than necessary and lay down on it, twisting to unzip my boots and kick them off, and then slid my thick, sweaty socks off with them.

“Bit of advice?” I heard Errol say.

“Sure?”

“Put your boots in the van and lay out your socks like I did.”

“Why?”

“Well, I don’t know for sure what sort of creatures live around here, but nothing you want taking up residence in your boots. And the socks, if you want them dry by morning, leaving them all crumpled up like that won’t do you any favors.”

“If there are creatures that might crawl into my boots, what’s to stop them from crawling onme?” I asked, squirming uncomfortably.

“Because they can sense you’re a living thing, and not a place to hide.”

“Oh.” Somewhat mollified, I tried to banish the creepy-crawly feeling I had imagining something slithering over my skin when I thought of something with too many legs crawling on me. I did as he suggested with my boots and socks, and then lay back down on the blanket.

For the first time since we met this morning, there was silence between us. I shifted, he shifted. A cough. Rustle. Feeling the cool setting in, I tugged the blanket out from under me and covered myself with it.

I heard his breathing shift, falling asleep.

“Poppy?”

“Mmm.”

“I sleep light, so you know.”