The tile kept reflecting people who were not listening. A stroller passed. A teenager laughed into a phone. The fountain kept raining. Aaliyah looked at the keys, which were still covered by nothing but air, and then at the woman, and then at the man who had not asked her name. Her voice, when she used it, was clear and not loud. It had practice in it, not of performance, of being heard in kitchens.
"Maybe I can do both."
Lauren's eyebrows rose by a measured amount. She shifted the coffee to her other hand. The phone screen woke and went dark again, a small impatient blink.
"Oh, you think you can play that?"
Marcus stood then, not menacing, simply taller, the way fathers become taller when they believe they are saving a child from herself. He nodded toward the play area visible past the planters, where a soft structure in primary colors held a knot of children and a teenager in a mall polo watched them with professional boredom.
"Go have fun with the other children."