”Bacon, egg and cheese. Everything bagel. Toasted.” I smile. And wait. Holding out my debit card. My stomach pangs like it’s digesting barbed wire. The chemical taste of left over smoke dries to ash on my arid tongue. My polite smile now a crooked craze of pain. My arm stammers toward her.
The woman takes the thin plastic, and her sandpaper fingers graze my palm. Transfixed by the sensation, I examine her hand. Cuticles peeled raw with pink horseshoes around each jagged fingernail. Deep crevices crack at each knuckle. A pale band on her tan skin whimpers around her ring finger.
The door jingles and the smell of my grandmother’s stale perfume fills the café. When I look, it’s a heavy, older woman. She’s wearing black jeans, black clogs and a dark grey v-neck that hangs just above her knees. Between the cellulite of her arm and her giant, bulging breasts nestles a little sleeping baby. It looks so comfortable. I wish I were small enough to curl up in her warm pudge, sleeping on a roasted marshmallow.
“Miss…”
I drop the drowsy thought and turn toward the timid voice.
“Declined.” She said. I don’t argue and I have no cash. I swallow the ash and say sorry to her ring finger. She places the card in my limp palm. It slides between my fingers and falls to the brown tiles.