New Yiyun Li: "Alone" →
When the waitress came to take the order, she asked how Suchen was doing with the smoke. Suchen replied vaguely that all was well with her, though she had no idea what smoke the waitress was talking about. The man sitting at the next table, an elbow away—the patio was barely large enough for the six tables it held, three of them unoccupied—must have been observing the exchange; he leaned over after the waitress had left and explained that up north the wildfire was just a few miles from the state highway.
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