She peeks around the partition. Her hair is shaped in an upside down V of tight light brown curls, she has a freckled face and light brown skin.
“What are you you ordering?” I ask.
Read moreThe mescal and something. I don’t catch the second thing. And I didn’t know the ice cream bar had those kind of flavors.
I am sitting at the counter on a stool and haven’t decided yet.
The woman moves around the partition and stands next to me.
“What was the second” I ask again. But she ignores me.
Up the stairs to my right are the others. The woman who invited me, who moved into my office and rearranged the furniture. As well as Jen Wright. They’re also ordering alcohol ice cream, rum is one. I don’t see how the ice cream can hold the alcohol.
“Where are you from?” I ask the woman.
“The Bahamas.”
“Oh, I been there,” I reply.
But immediately I know I’m wrong.
“Oh no, it was Barbados.” I correct myself, but she’s already talking.
“Yes, it’s beautiful,” she says, “and I still have my brothers there.”
Her mouth is wide, pale lips but full. I see her freckles up close.
Maybe I should have the mescal, and what else was it?
The others have already ordered and the woman in my office has come down to my counter with a waffle cone. She was the one who invited me. She has short plain blonde hair, her shoulders are rounded, she is plumped on the stool next to me.
When she moved in, she put the bookshelves against the window, moved my desk away from there, and put her desk against the adjoining wall. Our beds, she also rearranged, both on the same wall, mine at the furthest end of the room, closest to the door, even though it was the bigger bed.
It made sense in a way, but it irritated me, now that my desk no longer abutted the window, now that the shelves blocked the light.
I place my arm around her shoulders and she feels weighty.
Photo provided by PickPik.
