“Table nine left you a quarter and a tract about the end of the world,” Toni said. “I figure your tense can survive that. You want me to take the window next Saturday so you can hide in the back if they come in again?”
Emily considered it. The consideration was serious. Hiding was a skill she had refined, and skills, once refined, asked to be used. She thought of Caleb’s closed-mouth smile and of Denise’s card, which was in her apron pocket now, the edge of it against the creamers. She thought of the pencil not touching the paper, that small suspension in which she could still have chosen to be only the woman with the coffee, and of the moment after, when the graphite had come down and the suspension had ended and the world had not, in fact, punished her by coming apart.
“No,” she said. “If they come in, they come in. I’ll pour the coffee anyway.”
“Suit yourself,” Toni said, which was affection. “I’m still taking half your side work. You owe me a club sandwich’s worth of moral support. The man said the soup was fine. I hate it when they say fine.”