Stacey, hurtling through central Wisconsin

The New Amsterdam Tulip Festival, here she comes!

Stacey is on a tour bus and it's the nicest thing she has ever, ever ridden.

The bus windows are so clean she can see forever, see Tim's dirty slippers up on the coffee table in their Cleveland apartment a hundred miles away. She sends him mental messages: get your feet off. There's lasagne in the fridge for dinner. Do not share with Booboo. She knows he will.

The seats, cushier than the couch at home, recline.

The tiny stainless steel bus bathroom is simply genius.

Thermoception: awareness of heat and cold. The magnificent coach has it.

Above the driver in his spring green Day Away Tours uniform—he's a better driver than Tim; what sweet agony waiting to tell him that. Stacey knows the opportunity will come on a Thursday night as he complains about leftover leftovers—is a gigantic TV. The one at home is not.

Tour guide Laars, Stacey's second nicest thing ever, welcomed her aboard the bus.

Blond curls, a tangy twangy upstate accent, a little front tooth gap. Company shirt and pants stretched tightly over muscle mountains.

Laars strides up and down the bus—effortlessly, the way equilibrium should be; Tim will tip over in the apartment at least once today while Stacey is away—serving granola bars and juice boxes warmed in his manly grasp. They are free. The Day Away Tours souvenir tulip bulbs are not. Three for $10.

Inside, Stacey actually knows what her organs are doing: beating, throbbing, yearning. Eyes closed in fantasy, she can finally touch her finger to her lips. That's never been possible while thinking of Tim. There's an earthiness, a muskiness on the bus's air-conditioned breeze.

Pheromones, Stacey senses.

She buys fifty bulbs.

Laars directs her attention to the TV, to a documentary about the Tulip Mania of the 1630s.

Perhaps it's the great screen messing with Stacey's chronoception, how she perceives the passage of time. Or maybe it's the velocity of the bus or Laar's magnetism.

One or more of these senses or something even more mysterious hurtles Stacey waaaay back.

Mad men in pointed hats and bloomers are feverishly bidding on tulip bulbs. For one, two wagons of hay! Four oxen! A thousand pounds of cheese! Five acres of good land! A mansion on Amsterdam's Grand Canal!

With backwards knowing, Stacey sees the fortune she'd have made with her fifty bulbs. Three centuries later, there'd be no toiling at Frost's Packaging for twenty-four long years at little more than minimum wage. There'd be a new truck for Tim. Driving lessons! Booboo beautifully groomed with a puff at the end of her tail! The best couch ever made! A posh, customized bus!

And Laars. Yeah, luscious Laars. Two fine firm bulbs for him.

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