Read Winter Jacket: New Beginnings for Free Online

always commandeered a corner location with comfortable chairs and our own c offee table. “All the more reason to move full-time to California.”
    “Don’t even joke about that,” I complained with a sour expression.
    Troian made a more than comfortable living writing screenplays. She’d recently made the transition into writing for television, but the work was such that she could telecommute or take short trips to California where the studio was, while still keeping her permanent residence in the city of her alma mater, the small liberal arts college where I taught.
    Troian ruffled her long, dark hair, knocking th e melting snow from her locks. “Why do I even bother fixing my hair?”
    “Because you’re high maintenance?” I teasingly guessed. She wasn’ t really – that was more her girlfriend Nikole’s modus operandi , which I found ironic since she was the one who played in dirt all day as a landscaper. Both of my friends were more concerned with their appearance than me. Unless I was teaching, I had no problem going out in my glasses instead of contacts, my hair in a ponytail, wearing clothes that could pass for pajamas.
    Troian grunted, but didn’t take the bait. “You need a refill?” She dug around inside her messenger bag for her money.
    “I’ m good right now. I’ve gotta pace myself,” I said, covering the top of my coffee mug with a cupped hand. I had a long day ahead of me on campus; if I loaded up on caffeine now, I’d crash later.
    “You’ re going first today,” Troian said when she returned with her coffee. We always started our coffee dates with a few rounds of a game we’d invented – Top, Bottom, or Switch. We made up stories about people’s lives – mostly about their sex lives – while they waited in line for overpriced coffee and cranberry bran muffins. It was fun and I justified it as not being mean or judgmental, but as being creative; fabricating back-stories and plots was part of my professional life.
    “Guy third in line,” Troian said with a jerk of her head. “Why does he look so pinched?”
    I regarded the man who stood in line, three people from the cashier. He was dressed professionally and he fiddled anxiously with his phone. Troian was right. He did look pinched. He looked no older than me, but his eyes were narrowed and his forehead was furrowed. There were two deep-set lines between his eyebrows.
    “He fought with his wife all morning,” I said. “They’ve got a pact never to leave for work angry with each other, and he’s thinking about calling her right now to apologize, even though he doesn’t think the fight was his fault. But he knows from experience that his wife thinks she’s always right.”
    Troian nodded wistfully as she took a drink of her coffee.
    “Woman in the yoga capri pants,” I assigned next. I had noticed the woman nearly right away. She was wearing a heavy winter jacket, but the bottom half of her legs were bare. “Why isn’t she wearing full-length pants? Doesn’t she know it’s Winter?”
    Troian se t her mug down on the small end table beside her chair. “They are full-length pants,” she announced with a grin. “They’re just not hers.”
    “Oh, really?”
    Troian nodded. “She stayed over at her girlfriend’s house last night and she had nothing to change into this morning. Her girlfriend is only four foot ten.”
    “ Oh, so she took your pants?”
    “Asshole,” Troian scowled. “I’ m five foot one. We can’t all be Jolly Green Giants like you.”
    At five foot eight , I hardly considered myself a giant, but adolescents hitting puberty were taller than Troian. I kept that observation to myself. Troian was sensitive about her height, but that didn’t stop me entirely from teasing her about it. “Top, Bottom, or Switch?” I posed.
    Troian sat forward in her chair to more closely inspect the woman standing in line. “Bottom,” she finally decided on.
    I arched an eyebrow. “Oh, yeah? She lets her four