The Survey

The light rail was humming along and she'd been idling, her phone-hand holding the device loosely in her lap and her eyes on the streak of rainwater across the windows, when she heard a voice. "Ma'am?" it said. "Excuse me?"

In the aisle stood a tall, thin boy in a black polo shirt and a black baseball cap, both embroidered with the transit agency's pyramidal orange logo. "I'm sorry to bother you, ma'am," he said (ma'am! How often did anyone call her that?), "but would it be OK if I asked you a few questions? For a survey we're doing?"

He said all this with a voice of impressive depth, resonant like a pipe organ. He had a GMO-grade Adam's apple that wobbled with each word. When he spoke he kept his eyes down, on the back of the seat in front of hers; whether out of politeness or discomfort she couldn't say. But the thought that she might make him nervous endeared him to her.

"Of course," she said. "That'd be fine."

"I appreciate it. Thanks very much," he said, and slid into the seat beside hers. In his hand he had a tablet computer in a black rubber case, and he felt along the side of it until its screen sprang to life, casting a bluish light onto the gray plastic backing of the seat in front of his.

"Do you get many people who say 'no'?" she asked.

"More than you'd think," he said, and smiled vaguely, his eyes on his device. "Sometimes they take it like you're invading their privacy. Like they're worried I'll make them admit something they'll regret." And he laughed, a shallow, throaty bark that suggested an unwillingness to indulge in amusement with a stranger present.

"I guess it's probably not the best night for a survey anyway," she said, gesturing with a tilt of her head to the car around them. Aside from the two of them there was one other rider, an old man with a high-gloss pate who sat several rows ahead and on the opposite side of the aisle, facing the rear of the train. It was the day after Thanksgiving; the MAX had been unusually empty in the morning, too.

"I wouldn't have minded a night off," the boy said. "But there's always research to do somewhere in the system. We're always trying to iron out inefficiencies and improve service. Last night I was on a bus, and the day before that I was on the streetcar. I spent last week talking to people at stops. That's the worst place to be, probably."

"Why's that?"

He shrugged. "Maybe it's because they're already out in the cold, or because they're anxious I'll make them miss their bus. But it's hard to get good information from those people. They can get rude. They'll tell you to mind your own business, leave them alone, and go—well, you know." He laughed again, the same hoarse cough, though a little softer this time.

"Plus I guess on the MAX people don't ask you for change as often," she joked.

"That's true," he said, though he didn't smile.

For a few moments they lapsed into silence. It wasn't an uncomfortable pause—more like the kind that intercedes between text messages exchanged with an old friend. She could hear and feel the pleasant rhythmic clack of the MAX as it flashed along the ties, a high-spirited, old- fashioned sound that seemed to bear some of the conversation's weight.

She wasn't unused to talking to strangers on the light rail. A month back there'd been a large, red-faced man who wanted her signature in order to get some soda tax on the ballot. And a week ago there'd been a silver fox type who wanted to know what could possibly be so engrossing about her phone, never mind that he himself had the latest model, that he...