Zooey looked at Fritz as if he were a child holding up a fingerpainting he had just brought home from kindergarten. It was a look of awe and encouragement shadowed with a hope for greater potential. Fritz frowned at her stare.

“Can’t I just put them somewhere?” Fritz argued. “I can make a map of where they used to be and number them with post it notes. You know, the coloured ones? And then I can store all the pieces of my great work in the closet and when Nasa leaves I’ll put it all back. Like the way they can take down and rebuild old houses?”

“Fine,” she said groaning. “But find a way to make that unbearable old coffee smell go away.” Fritz looked pleased and gave Zooey a smug look. Behind her dark sunglasses he could sense that she was lowering her gaze at him.

They rose to leave and returned to the sunshine that poured onto the streets from the buckets of sun in the sky. Out of the corner of her eye Zooey caught a flash of red from across the streets. It was gone instantly into the crowd.