“Fried egg sandwich?” The waitress inserted the plate between the chattering women. It was early which meant that there wasn’t much traffic on the road yet, which made it pleasant to sit outside the sandwich shop. Come 8:00 and the traffic would be snarling, kids running in to buy lunch, and it would only be four more hours before she could go home.
“Mine,” said a tidy brunette, raising a hand like an obedient school girl. Closing in on ninety, she’d left her school days long behind her, but still tittered, cherished her brunette curls, and wore neat little outfits that all matched and were machine washable.
“BLT? Oatmeal?” The waitress slid the plates to the other two women at the table. “More coffee?”
“Yes, please,” said the brunette. She leaned across the table, waiting until the door closed behind the waitress.
“So, like I was saying, something is not right over there. She’s always been a strange one and now it’s getting worse.”
“I know what you mean,” added the frost-tipped blonde. “Bernice has the lights on all night and you know how we had an understanding because her lights shine into my bedroom…and there are always people coming and going.”
“Some people go like that, get all social before they move because they know that they won’t ever have to see these people ever again. That reminds me, did you know that Mitchell and Corinne split?”
“Finally! I can’t believe they lasted as long as they did. And what about Sharon and Christopher?”
“Back together. Couldn’t do any better than each other. Did Sam ever move?”
“No, that was just her talking. If you ask me, she just liked the attention of the realtors, lawyers, and workers running through her place. She’ll be here until they carry her out in a box.”
For the next half hour, the three women picked over their food and everyone they knew. The enormous range of people they claimed to know, the connections, rumors, and dire conclusions that they came to brightened their spirits and renewed their arsenals for the week ahead.
They were so entranced with who they knew and what they knew about them that they didn’t notice a tall, thin woman slip into the table next to theirs. Bells tinkled on her ankles as she swept by them and into the sandwich shop.
“Is that hippie girl wearing patchouli?” the frost-tipped blonde sniffed the air as the young woman passed.
“Smells like Stevie’s room when he used to cover up the smell of pot,” the brunette mused. She startled when the others turned to her with wide eyes. “Well, all young people experimented back then.”
“Did you see her eyes? They’re purple, that Elizabeth Taylor blue-violet.” The auburn updo sighed. “Probably contacts. No one really has eyes that color.”
The young woman opened the door with her back,a mug of coffee in each hand. She smiled at the table of women and they gave her the tight, polite smiles reserved for strangers wearing patchouli and bells. Once she settled at her table, they watched the traffic for a minute, sipped their coffee, and handed their plates to the waitress when she bustled out with a fresh pot of coffee.
“Courtney!” said a voice they knew. “I am so sorry that I’m late. I got stuck behind a school bus.”
The young woman laughed. “No problem, Bernice. It’s so warm, I thought we could sit outside?”
While Courtney and Bernice chattered over coffee and cookies, the table of women described their impossibly long lists of errands and obligations, keeping an ear to the conversation behind them. If they were lucky, they might get some answers to questions raging like hornets in their minds — at the very least, the arsenal would be stocked with new material.
Louise Foerster 