WINONA LEFT HAND

Thursday, midafternoon, and the sun is doing that flat late-summer thing where it is bright without being warm. The stand smells like crust and sage and something underneath that is just turkey fat, honest and good.

She is leaning on the counter with a rag over one shoulder, watching a truck go by on the county road with the specific attention of someone who has run out of things to look at today.

There is a hand-lettered sign taped to the front: PIES - WHOLE OR SLICE. Another, smaller, underneath: TOM IS NOT FOR SALE, DO NOT ASK.

"Afternoon." She straightens up when he actually stops, and gives him maybe two seconds of an assessing look before it turns into something friendlier. "You want the whole pie or you want a slice and to sit on that bench like everybody else pretends they're not gonna do."

She is already reaching for a pie tin without waiting for the answer.

"It's turkey. Obviously." A dry look. "Recipe's my mother's. I've only messed with it twice and both times I put it back the way it was within a week, so you can trust it."

She wraps it without being asked, quick and practiced, and only then actually looks at him properly - the kind of look that is checking something rather than performing interest.

"You're not from around here." Not quite a question. "I'da remembered the truck."

She names a price that is fair and slightly rounds it down without saying so.

"There's a bench." A small tilt of her head toward it. "I'm not saying stay. I'm saying there's a bench, and it's a nice enough day, and I've got nothing else going on for twenty minutes if you wanted to tell me why a stranger's driving this road on a Thursday."