In his dreams, he ate pastrami sandwiches. In his life, he didn’t like them. He could stomach neither bread nor meat. He survived, pretty much, on dairy products.

Martha met him on a bus. He was shy. She drew him out, asking what he thought of her photographs, telling him to choose between two pictures of a waterfall and making him defend his choice. She asked, "What’s your favorite religion?" and "What’s so great about cheese?" Martha was good at that, at drawing people out.

When she asked him his name, he mumbled, so she asserted, "You look like a Carl to me. Would you mind if I called you that?" He shook his head and it was settled. She would call him Carl and never learn his real name.

The bus was an overnighter from Wichita to Boise. Martha had landed a job at a newspaper there. Carl was visiting his Great Aunt Lucille, who was dying. It was his last chance to see her. When he was little, she had been his favorite babysitter. He would miss her, he told Martha. He missed her already.

"There, there," said Martha gently, and patted his head. He fell asleep in her lap and dreamed of pastrami sandwiches and avocado trees.

Martha fell in love with him, but he didn’t like girls.

She knew she couldn’t bear to be near him, yet apart, so she said goodbye at the bus station and didn’t let herself cry. She had a pastrami sandwich for lunch at a diner near the station. She wiped her mouth with her sleeve and the mustard stained her shirt.