Read The Coffee Shop for Free Online

me.”
    “Look? I had a look?”
    “Yes, like what the…is she doing?”
    He grinned at her leaving out the word.
    He followed her in, and she rushed forward, turning on the light and gathering up the papers spread all over the table. Piling them quickly together, she slipped them into a folder and set them aside. “The place is such a mess. Here I was going to clean it up, and then go out shopping and pick up everything I needed, and then be leisurely cooking the meal when you stepped in the door.” He stared at her as she rambled. “Oh.” And she laughed. “I guess I should explain. Angela called to see if I could cover Amber’s shift. She’s sick, and…so, of course I said yes.” She shrugged. “Guess I thought I was superwoman or something.”
    “Superwoman?”
    “You know, I can do it all. Thought I could have the groceries bought, tidy the place, and then be cooking before you got here.” She glanced around the apartment. “What was I thinking?” She looked at the bottle of red wine in his hand. “Think that would go well with pizza?”
    Derrick just smiled. “Pizza sounds good to me.”
    “Thank God. Because without take-out just now, I’d be lost.” She threw her purse onto the kitchen chair. “Oh, I am such a horrible hostess. Here, let me take that wine. Now was that the ten minute rule, or was it twenty?”
    “Depends on who you ask, but I put red in the fridge for ten minutes before I drink it.”
    “Ten it is then.” She pointed at the take-out menus piled on the counter. “You choose.”
    Derrick picked up the rather worn menus. “Just curious about something.”
    “Hmm?”
    “These menus…they look well-used.”
    “I use them all the time. I know I shouldn’t, not exactly healthy eating, I know.”
    “But you don’t have a phone? Well, you do now. But you only just got that. So…how do you?”
    “Call my orders in?” Surely she had to be hiding a phone somewhere around here and had only made up the story of not having one. “Well, I go across the hall and ask to use Mrs. Fleming’s.”
    “And she doesn’t mind you bothering her all the time?”
    “Well, when you put it like that.” Crossing her arms across her chest, she frowned at him as she leaned back against the counter. “If you must know, nosy, Mr. Fleming died six months ago, and the poor woman is at a loss as to what to do with herself. Her kids never visit her, and she is all alone over there. I can’t even begin to imagine what that must be like. Having been together for fifty years and then one day, they just aren’t there anymore. Everywhere she looks she sees him, his slippers, his pipe. Everywhere she looks she sees his absence, his empty chair, his side of the bed.” She became quiet for a moment, her gaze falling to the floor. “So from time to time, I go over there and ask to use her phone to order take-out. I ask if she wants to join me. She always says no. I always order extra, and tell her I’ll have them deliver it to her apartment, so I can visit with her while I wait. When it arrives, I always tell her I ordered too much and she is going to have to help me eat it. She always does.”
    She smiled.
    “It’s this thing we do. So don’t tell her I have a phone, or there will be no reason to go over there. At least in her mind there won’t.”
    He stood there watching her without speaking.
    “What’s that look for?” she asked him.
    “What look?”
    “The one on your face.”
    “I have a look?” He reached up feeling his face, as if by doing so he could determine what she was talking about.
    She shrugged. “Okay, have it your way then.”
    He grinned and sorted through the menus. There were menus for just about every kind of food and every restaurant within delivery distance. “You order from all of these?”
    She laughed. “Pretty much. When it’s just yourself, cooking a great big meal with several courses just doesn’t seem like something you feel like doing. Well, I guess I