These Strange & Magic Things by Peter M. Ball

Author:Peter M. Ball [Ball, Peter M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Brain Jar Press

4.

I finish eating and contemplate a cup of actual, honest-to-God coffee. Tell myself I can afford it, once the daylight sells. Lillian sees me hesitate, knows what it means. We edge as close as we will get to an admission that I’m dealing: “Good week?” she says.

“Not yet, but it’s coming.”

I’m staring at the menu board and Lillian smiles.

“You can owe me,” she says. “Fix me up later, yeah?”

I agree in a moment of weakness. My simple, cardinal rule: it is smarter to work in cash than trade in endless credit, better to owe people nothing instead of fretting about the debt. I break that guideline on rare occasions, but the aroma of real coffee, dark and bitter, wipes out my practical side.

I sit by the counter, take my time. Sip with slow, deliberate languor, savoring the flavor. Lillian cleans her ancient machine, dumping grounds from the portafilter with a look of resignation. It’s hot in the cramped quarters, amid the tight press of tables and the close-set walls. She wipes perspiration from her forehead, grabs my dinner plate, and transfers it to the tiny kitchen out back.

I wish it wasn’t like this, but it is. She is who she is, and I am myself. There’s no space for compromise in our night-shrouded world.

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