"Some days it is for me, too," Matt admits with a half-smile, although in truth he's never quite gotten over that first swig of whiskey when he was nine. To a kid raised on whole milk and Coca-Cola, it was like swallowing lighter fluid.

"Have you been here long?" he asks conversationally, already suspecting the answer. She's been out in the dirt, not of some alternate universe but here, with its unique scent of zinc and ozone. It seems reasonable to expect that most people don't show up, leave the front desk and immediately start gardening.