The seven-fifteen still smelled of toast and damp coats when the driver cleared her throat, not for a street, but for a neighbor. She named the linden that likes the sunny side, then the maples in a row, each in a voice small enough that the car seemed to lean closer to the windows.
We asked at the kiosk by the last stop. "I only meant to get to work," said a man with a folded paper. "Then the whole row nodded, and I felt I ought to nod first. It seemed rude to sit there like a suitcase."
A card above the fare box, in the depot's tidy hand, asked riders to wave with the hand that was not holding the strap. The little book of remarks already holds "the oak near the bakery bowed like a grocer" and "please tell the young birch we liked its new leaves."
The next morning the same passengers came back a stop early. According to the driver, the maples were already leaning in.