Where the Shop Was

(Ethan is driving. Yolanda has the phone on speaker in her kitchen.)

Yolanda: Where are you now?

Ethan: I don’t know. I’m lost. Trees. There’s a lot of trees.

Yolanda: Right, that’s the bottom of the hill. Go straight past the postbox, then turn left at the red gate.

Ethan: I’ve gone past a gate. It was green.

Yolanda: Green? Oh, they painted it. Yes, that’s the red gate.

Ethan: …

Yolanda: Then keep going until the cattle grid.

Ethan: The what?

Yolanda: You’ll feel it. The car goes drrr.

Ethan: Yolanda, there’s no signpost. There’s nothing here. I’ve got eleven minutes.

Yolanda: You’re fine. After the grid, go past where the shop was. We’re the third house, opposite the water tank.

Ethan: Where the shop… was.

Yolanda: Everyone knows where the shop was.

Ethan: I moved here in March.

(A car goes past Ethan and slows down.)

Ethan: There’s a car in front of me now. It’s got a cake on the back seat.

Yolanda: A cake?

Ethan: A big one. In a box.

Yolanda: That’s my sister. Follow her.

Ethan: That’s the first thing you’ve said that I can actually do.