She takes another hit of latte and does her best impression of someone tapping their feet while both her feet remain tucked under her. Tim is late, in the least divine sense. He isn�t late, as a general rule, and it disturbs her when this sort of thing happens.
He shouldn�t be late, she keeps thinking. And she knows that when he does deign to arrive, she will kiss him quickly and muss up his hair, probably while switching the radio station. She knows that she can�t even attempt to change her behavior around Tim; he is sort of a constant.
Then the latte is finished and she slams it into a garbage can with a ferocity that she doesn�t really feel. It�s kind of a relief, though, to pretend to be angry: it funnels out any possible anger she might feel in the future. She feels unkempt and condensed, smaller that usual. Cold weather usually does this. She wants a watch, or a less conspicuous cell phone. She doesn�t want to take it out to check the time in this place, this place of junkies and whores and day laborers. So she stays on the bench , pretending to meditate, if only so the people driving by will be able to say that they witnessed the novelty of a girl meditating on a park bench. She confuses this with benevolence.
The latte had come from the Colombian coffee shop, in fact, not her usual Starbucks. She was a little short on cash, no thanks to Tim. And her hair was messed and her feet in their boy�s sneakers and thin socks (printed pink with strawberries) were cold. Are cold, still perched on the bench like a godforsaken mockingbird. And she walked in and mispronounced the Colombian latte, and burned, slowly, as it was handed to her. She realized that she didn�t know if Colombia speaks Spanish or Colombian, and burned a deeper crimson, which she realized, with abject certainty, she could not blame on the cold
And the woman behind the counter had stretched her red-painted fingernails out, holding the cup, and proffered it, and Alison had dropped her forty cent�s change into the coffee cup and the woman had looked as blank as a sheet of paper.
And Alison had pretended to be merry and gone for a little stroll around the area, keeping both pouting blue eyes out for Tim�s familiar vehicle, the inflamed blackness of his father�s Range Rover.
Tim�s father is rich.
So is Alison�s.
They went to the same rich preschool, which I attended for a year and met both of them. They looked at me oddly, but I can�t remember much else.
How do I know all these things about Alison�s Thursday? Well, I saw them, watched them, and imagined, from the backseat of a car that was not a Range Rover, but a dark green Altima that belonged (and still belongs) to Tim�s mother. We drove past Alison time and time and time and she just kept eyes out for people who are not us. And Tim swung the car around the cul-de-sac at the bottom of Main and I could feel his love turning, and dripping away. He hadn�t spoken to me much: in fact, I don�t have much idea at all why I am in this car, this low slung green sedan. It smells lingeringly of Tim�s mother�s perfume, which is a thick and terrifying scent.
Tim�s mother is a well-off lawyer in a nearby city, to which she drives every morning. I imagine the perfume building, like the layers of calcium spelunkers dig off cave walls, to a thick crust all along the inside of the automobile. She keeps hectic classical tunes in the CD player and they blared when Tim and I first got in her car.
How I got in the car was this:
Tim had stopped me in the hall, and said, �Hey. I�m sorry. Come for a ride?� and I couldn�t think of what to say. Some girl near us shouted, �Yes!� to someone else�s question and he nodded and stuck his arm around me, in a manner much like he were embracing a raccoon. I pulled my coat tighter around me, and straightened my scarf. Today we began the under 40 period of northeastern autumn, which is less friendly and crisp than miserable and slightly foggy.
Tim had said that he would have to switch cars, because his dad needed the Rover. I giggled a little bit inside because no one needs a Range Rover ever in mid-suburban sprawl, but agreed to stop by his house to make the switch. He said there was something he had to do and drove by the coffee shop once, twice, three times, watching Alison not watch him.
Finally, he nods. �We can leave now.�