but has good-looking legs and a nice bust for such a slim body.
Her thin metal earrings sparkle like duralumin. She wears her dark brown, almost reddish dyed hair down to her shoulders, and has on a long-sleeved crewneck shirt with wide stripes. A small leather backpack hangs from one shoulder, and a light sweater's tied around her neck. A cream-colored miniskirt completes her outfit, with no stockings. She's evidently washed her face, since a few strands of hair, like the thin roots of a plant, are plastered to her broad forehead. Strangely enough, those loose strands of hair draw me to her.
'You were on the bus, weren't you?' she asks me, her voice a little husky.
'Yeah, that's right.'
She frowns as she takes a sip of the coffee. 'How old are you?'
'Seventeen,' I lie.
'So you're in high school.'
I nod.
'Where're you headed?'
'Takamatsu.'
'Same with me,' she says. 'Are you visiting, or do you live there?'
'Visiting,' I reply.
'Me too. I have a friend there. A girlfriend of mine. How about you?'
'Relatives.'
I see, her nod says. No more questions. 'I've got a younger brother the same age as you,' she suddenly tells me, as if she'd just remembered. 'Things happened, and we haven't seen each other for a long time… You know something? You look a lot like that guy. Anybody ever tell you that?'
'What guy?'
'You know, the guy who sings in that band! As soon as I saw you in the bus I thought you looked like him, but I just can't come up with his name. I must have busted a hole in my brain trying to remember. That happens sometimes, right? It's on the tip of your tongue, but you just can't think of it. Hasn't anybody said that to you before-that you remind them of somebody?'
I shake my head. Nobody's ever said that to me. She's still staring at me, eyes narrowed intently. 'What kind of person do you mean?' I ask.
'A TV guy.'
'A guy who's on TV?'
'Right,' she says, picking up her ham sandwich and taking an uninspired bite, washing it down with a sip of coffee. 'A guy who sings in some band. Darn-I can't think of the band's name, either. This tall guy who has a Kansai accent. You don't have any idea who I mean?'
'Sorry, I don't watch TV.'
The girl frowns and gives me a hard look. 'You don't watch at all?'
I shake my head silently. Wait a sec-should I nod or shake my head here? I go with the nod.
'Not very talkative, are you? One line at a time seems your style. Are you always so quiet?'
I blush. I'm sort of a quiet type to begin with, but part of the reason I don't want to say much is that my voice hasn't changed completely. Most of the time I've got kind of a low voice, but all of a sudden it turns on me and lets out a squeak. So I try to keep whatever I say short and sweet.
'Anyway,' she goes on, 'what I'm trying to say is you look a lot like that singer with the Kansai accent. Not that you have a Kansai accent or anything. It's just-I don't know, there's something about you that's a lot like him. He seems like a real nice guy, that's all.'
Her smile steps offstage for a moment, then does an encore, all while I'm dealing with my blushing face. 'You'd resemble him even more if you changed your hair,' she says. 'Let it grow out a little, use some gel to make it flip up a bit. I'd love to give it a try. You'd definitely look good like that. Actually, I'm a hairdresser.'
I nod and sip my tea. The cafeteria is dead silent. None of the usual background music, nobody else talking besides the two of us.
'Maybe you don't like talking?' she says, resting her head in one hand and giving me a serious look.
I shake my head. 'No, that's not it.'
'You think it's a pain to talk to people?'
One more shake of my head.
She picks up her other sandwich with strawberry jam instead of ham, then frowns and gives me this look of disbelief. 'Would you eat this for me? I hate strawberry-jam sandwiches more than anything. Ever since I was a kid.'
I take it from her. Strawberry-jam sandwiches aren't exactly on my top-ten list either, but I don't say a word and start eating.
From across the table she watches until I finish every last crumb. 'Could you do me a favor?' she says.
'A favor?'
'Can I sit next to you until we get to Takamatsu? I just can't relax when I sit by myself. I always feel like some weird person's going to plop himself down next to me, and then I can't get to sleep. When I bought my ticket they told me they were all single seats, but when I got on I saw they're all doubles. I just want to catch a few winks before we arrive, and you seem like a nice guy. Do you mind?'
'No problem.'
'Thanks,' she says. ''In traveling, a companion,' as the saying goes.'
I nod. Nod, nod, nod-that's all I seem capable of. But what should I say?
'How does that end?' she asks.
'How does what end?'
'After a companion, how does it go? I can't remember. I never was very good at Japanese.'
''In life, compassion,'' I say.
''In traveling, a companion, in life, compassion,'' she repeats, making sure of it. If she had paper and pencil, it wouldn't surprise me if she wrote it down. 'So what does that really mean? In simple terms.'
I think it over. It takes me a while to gather my thoughts, but she waits patiently.
'I think it means,' I say, 'that chance encounters are what keep us going. In simple terms.'
She mulls that over for a while, then slowly brings her hands together on top of the table and rests them there lightly. 'I think you're right about that-that chance encounters keep us going.'
I glance at my watch. It's five-thirty already. 'Maybe we better be getting back.'
'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. I look down and catch a glimpse of her bra strap through the collar of her crewneck
