The next morning, Lydia awoke with a groan. Four and a half hours of sleep, when she had been used to ten, was a more than noticable difference. It felt like there was a weight, a solid force and pressure residing somewhere in the back of her skull. The alarm clock had rung en times before she finally managed to reach it and turn it off, and she slumped back onto her bed when she had succeeded.
Five minutes later she was perilously close to dropping off to sleep again. With a frustrated sort of whimper, Lydia sat up almost painfully and threw her legs over the side of her bed. Her eyes half-focused on a spot halfway across the floor, eyes almost entirely lidded and the darkness of the room appearing almost complete. Through her lashes, she could just barely make out light streaming through the windows, moonlight from above and the glare from the street lamps filtering up from below. Rather than making the room brighter, the touch of light seemed almost to make the darkness more absolute.
For a few more moments Lydia sat on the edge of her bed, skin shivering ocassionally although the air wasn’t truly that cold. Slowly, her mind began to work. ‘I wonder,’ she thought, ‘if you are more sensitive to temperatures when it’s early. That is, when you’ve just woken up. I normally wouldn’t think this was that cold, really. I mean, I would think it was cold, but I always think it’s cold. I wouldn’t mind, that’s what I mean. Right now, though, it’s like the worst thing imaginable. The cold. I’m shivering because of it, even though the heater’s going and it’s much warmer than outside, and because it’s so much warmer than my covers I just want to curl up and go back to sleep. Under my covers, where it’s warm.’
With a silent moan, Lydia realized that if she was conscious enough to think, no matter how disconnected and unimportant the thoughts, she must surely be awake enough to move. Once that thought filtered through her mind, it was followed by the realization that it was past time for her to get out of bed and start getting ready to go to work.
Lydia didn’t bother turning on any light. She knew where everything n the large room was situated, and the little bit of light that filtered through the windows was more than she needed. Sometimes Lydia thought that she’d make an excellent blind person.
A peculiar thought, really, and one that ran across her brain again at 4:10 on a Tuesday morning. After all, her eyes were almost closed already, and the room was almost entirely dark. She only used her eyes for – well, reading, and checking when to cross the street, and working. The blind can do all of that. Really, she might as well be blind already.
Able to think, but not yet conscious enough to analyze her thoughts, Lydia let the concept slde from her weary mind as soon as it entered. She walked across her room slowly, placing her feet delicately on the floor. She’d gotten splinters from the wood once, and had thought about buying rugs back when she first moved in. Now she’d just figured out how to walk so that the wood was nonhazardous, and she stepped carefully towards her clothes.
Four uniforms stood on the rack, and she picked out the one that was closest to her. She owned six coat hangers, actually – there was always one that was never used. She wasn’t quite sure why she had it, except maybe that getting rid of it would actually have been more work than keeping it. When she realized that she was standing besides her closerack, her inside-out closet, as it were, thinking aobut the fact that she had one more coat hanger than she needed, Lydia’s eyes opened almost all the way, incredulous. "Talk about mundane," she whispered, her voice hoarse and somehow harsh in the silence. It was not a pretty sound, and she didn’t speak again, keeping her frustration to herself. But god, how boring! How goddamn boring could a life get, before it just gave up, rolled over, and died?
Lydia grabbed her bra, underwear, and socks, feeling as though she ought to be muttering. It was really quite ironic. She was feeling so bitter because she was tired, and she was tired because she had been out late last night – out eating dinner, with coworkers who seemed to be, well, almost friends. Getting there. Her life was getting more interesting of late than it had been for – a long time – and she was complaining that it was too dull. It made no sense at all.
Lydia did turn on the bathroom light – true, she may well have managed quite well blind, but to shower in the dark would just be weird. Not that she’d ever tried, mind, but it seemed like it would be weird beyond words.
Strange phrase. Beyond words. You’d think most things would be, wouldn’t they? Most worthwhile things, anyway. I suppose ridiculously dull and simple things might be within words.
But math, on one level as dull and simple (one plus one equals two, two plus two equals four, all quite simple and compartamentalized and endlessly, endlessly dull) spiralled up to a level quite beyond words. Not to mention comprehension.
Chuckling would have been peculiar, with noone around to hear her. Lydia’s face remained impassive and slightly exhausted as she glanced at it in the mirror, while her mind was amused by her mild joke. Further bemused by the comparison – the emotionless to her emotions – Lydia felt her lips twirk. Now that she had an audience, even if only herself, expressions became worth the energy it took to move her facial muscles.
With a sigh, Lydia stepped underneath the warm water and turned her back towards the stream. It wasn’t quite hot, soothing against the back of her neck, but it would have been painful against her face. Her eyes slipping closed, Lydia braced one hand against the wet, tiled wall on her right and stood motionless to the sound of the water.

"I’m so so sorry!"
Sally and Marge looked up, bemused at this impassioned outburst. "Ah, the latebird arrives!" Alice said liltingly. She grabbed a plate of food and added it to her tray, departing out the door to the dining room. Lydia looked at her back apologetically. She started talking before Sally could express whatever sentiment was causing her to glare at Alice like the darker girl had insulted her mother.
Lydia was flustered. "Yes, I didn’t mean to – truly I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened, it’s just I was moving slowly this morning, and I stood for forever in the shower, I swear that I think I zoned out, and now I’m late and I’m sorry."
"Relaaaax," Sally drawled. "Do you honestly think we mind that much? For heaven’s sake, what are we, nazis? I may be blond and all, but that’s just unfair."
"Don’t worry," Marge said. "There wasn’t much work to do, and we handled it just fine."
"Even covered for you," Sally said calmly, grabbing four neatly wrapped sets of silverware.
"Covered for me?"
Marge nodded. "Yup, the records say you’re here."
"Records?"
Sally rolled her eyes, but Marge was patient. "Greg’s records."
"Oh. Why?"
"So he can tell who –"
The slow, careful explanation was interupted. "No, why did you cover for me? Why did you … lie?"
"Lie? How low of a word," Sally said with a sniff. "I never lie. I speak mistruths, ocassionally, but that is something different entirely."
Lydia looked up at the taller woman until she couldn’t stand the calm, inquisitive gazeany more.
"Why shouldn’t we? For heaven’s sake, wouldn’t want you getting in trouble for something this small. Now get to work."
"Yes ma’am," Lydia said, her voice ludicrously small and meek.
With a sniff, Sally picked up her tray and with a loud, "coming right up, gentlemen!" she headed out into the dining room.

"So," Sally asked later that morning, nursing her – fourth? Fifth? – cup of coffee, "why were you late?"
Lydia looked up, slightly startled and guilty, and glanced around to see whether there was work that needed to be done. "Marge and Alice can handle it," Sally said dismissively. "Seriously, though. That’s never happened before, I don’t think."
"I was tired," Lydia said.
"Well, any fool could see that much," Sally said impatiently. Lydia blinked in surprise – she hadn’t seen any dark circles in the mirror that morning. "But why are you tired?"
"I was out late last night?"
"Really?" Sally got a gleam in her eye. "Doing what?"
"Eating."
"With who?" The older waitress looked positively predatory now, a vicious gleam in her eye, and her whole face with the excited expression of a cat who has just spotted a particularly plump bit of potential prey.
"Becky and Allison and Molly," Lydia said, slightly confused.
"Oh." Sally relaxed some, disappointed. "Those fools," she said fondly.
"Why did you… oh."
"Ah well. Still, it’s something. Where did you go?"
"A restaurant…" At Sally’s incredulous look, Lydia got defensive. "I’m trying to remember the name! I think it was called something-ette."
"Brownettes, probably. Nice enough. Wait a minute, though – wouldn’t the girls have been working?"
"It was after the dinner crowd left."
"After the dinner crowd left! Honey, we may be a diner that doesn’t do late-nights, but still – people don’t stop eating here until after ten thirty!"
"Well, we left a little before then. Brianna was covering the last few folks, I think."
"Lydia. How late were you out?"
"Um. I got back to my place at 11:30."
"And woke up at four?"
"Yeah."
"Look, I’m practically the poster child for the unhealthy and yet dull lifestyle, but even I get at least six hours of sleep a night. Usually. Somehow, you don’t strike me as the type used to lack of sleep."
"It’s been a while," lydia agreed.
Sally sighed and shook her head. "Child, child, child. You have to take better care of yourself. The way it looks now, you’ll be falling asleep on your coffee date this evening, and trust me, that’s boring." Lydia was blushing furiously now, mostly at the assumption that she’d be down at the coffeehouse, as though that were just an accepted part of life – which in a way she supposed it was.
"What are you, my mother?" Lydia asked, a tiny bit of true aggravation seeping into her joking voice.
"Heavens, no!" Sally’s shocked expression banished all irritation from Lydia’s mind. "A mother! Gods. No, not to mention that I’m much, much too young."
"Oh, I don’t know…" Lydia had a wicked gleam in her eye.
"What!" Sally looked affronted. "No. No, you did not. Tell me that you did not."
Lydia blinked innocently.
"I shall not even dignify that with a response," Sally said loftily, strolling off with her nose high and her heels clicking.

"Seriously, though." It was another quiet moment, when almost all of the breakfast crowd had gone off to work, and it was only the unemployed and elderly, those who could afford to be eating breakfast at eight thirty on a weekday, were still sitting out in the dining room.
"Seriously what?" Lydia asked. Sally appeared to have lost her train of thought.
"Oh! Right. Seriously, though, you do need to take better care of yourself."
"Six hours of sleep a night isn’t a lot."
"It’s more than four!"
"And a half! But that’s beside the point. You need to take better care of yourself, too."
"What, are you my mother now? That’s even more ridiculous."
"Yes, it is. And that’s saying something. But seriously."
"But seriously. And, if you’re going to be going out and eating, you ought to eat somewhere decent."
"Like?"
"Like Café Rivaldo downtown. It’s not quite posh, but excellent."
"Expensive?"
"Sweetie, I’m paying off tens of thousands of dollars of credit card debt. Do you really think I would be going off somewhere and spending fifty bucks on a dinner?"
Lydia just looked.
"Okay, I admit it. I might. But not here. So anyway, I’m working most of the week, but Friday after work you have to let me take you there."
"What, like a date?"
"Silly girl. Why on earth would I be asking you out on a date? No, just a dinner. Where you might actually be able to have a decent conversation and eat some decent food."
"Allison and Beck –"
"Becky and Molly are very nice people, yes yes yes. But really. Come on now, whaddaya say? You deserve a night out, and if that young man of yours asks you somewhere you’d probably freak,"
"Would not!"
"So, you know. Just think about it."
"Think about it?"
"Um, yeah? Thinking, you know, that thing people do with their brains? Well, most people, anyway."
"Are you kidding? Of course I’d like to come."
"Oh. That was easy, then."
Lydia grinned.


"Come on now, you’ve got some free time. Go pay a visit to your boypal."
"Boypal?"
"Siggy?"
"What?"
"as in significant other? Sheesh, have you no imagination?"
"I do! But he isn’t!"
"Right, then, hubby to be?"
"What!?"
"Okay, a bit premature. Fuckbuddy?"
lydia couldn’t even pull together a coherant sentence, instead sticking with the tried and true gasp of shock and smack of horror. Sally caught her wrist before she could do any damage, laughing.
"Fine, fine. Your gentleman friend. Appropriate enough for you?"
Lydia gave a sniff and withdrew her hand.
"Seriously, Lydie, you’ve got time – forty-five minutes, an hour until we’ll need you back here."
"I shouldn’t take that long on a break, though… wait, did you just call me Lydie?"
"Yes. Oh, for heavens sake. What do you think you are, a slave? You already work hours and hours more than you need to. How many hours did you work yesterday, eighteen?"
"What? She worked eighteen hours yesterday?" Marge joined the conversation with consternation on her face.
"No! More like seventeen. Less, if you count all the time we spent talking during the afternoon."
They both ignored her presence. "Yes. Isn’t it ridiculous?"
"Ridiculous! She needs to take better care of herself."
"That’s what I told her!"
"And care less about work. It’s only a job."
"that’s exactly what I told her."
"You did not!"
Sally spared Lydia a glance. "Well, I thought it, anyway."
"And did you hear the child? Less, if you count time spent talking, she said. Honestly, as though she needs to be working every single minutes."
"It’s insane, that’s what it is. And you know what else is insane?"
"What?" Lydia asked. Sally was looking at Marge, waiting for a response from the matron.
"What else is insane?" the older woman finally asked.
"She doesn’ thave anything she needs to be doing right now," Sally said, exaggerated outrage in her voice.
"And?"
"And?"
"And she’s standing around talking to us –"
"more like listening to you," Lydia muttered.
"—when she could be off drinking coffee and talking to a delightful young brunette."
"What’s wrong with the child!" Marge shrieked, more a declaration to the heavens than a question, even a rhetorical one. "What did we do wrong?"
"Um, hello? Honestly, you’re not my mother! Really!"
Once again, Lydia was soundly ignored.
"What do we do, Marge, what do we do?"
Suddenly, two bright eyes were focused on Lydia with the intensity of an interrogator’s flashlight. Lydia shrank under the sudden attention.
She gulped. "You know what, ah, I think I’ll, um, be going now." Marge’s face relaxed and broke into a grin, while Sally simply stood a bit straighter and substituted raised eyebrows for a deathglare.
"Good luck," Marge said upliftingly.
"Knock ‘em out, dollface," Sally said with a smirk as she snagged a half-empty mug and drained the coffee from inside.
Blushing still, Lydia grabbed her coat and walked out of the diner.


"Hi."
"Hi. Um, what would you like?"
"I was. Um. I thought I’d, you know, let you pick again?"
"I’m sorry about last time. That was really rude of me – I came on rather strong, didn’t I? Truly, I’m sorry. I – you can have whatever you want."
"No! Don’t be sorry. I mean, I understand. You were mad. And – well, you know. I don’t really know what I want. So I didn’t mind you picking out for me."
"Oh. Well, in that case…" Todd’s strange bout of insecurity vanished, replaced by a gleaming grin as he looked at Lydia impishly. "What shall I serve you today… oooh, the choices are endless."
Lydia just waited, eyes slightly downcast and her hands buried in her pockets. Two cold quarters still sat there, separate from the other coins. She’d decided to keep them.
Todd turned and looked at the shelves of ingredients and additives, and at the large chalkboard menu above his head.
"You know what," he said, "let’s go with the basic. A latte. A tall latte, single espresso shot and no chocolate. Whaddaya say?"
Lydia honestly did not like coffee. "Sounds fine."
"Excellent, excellent." He started humming to himself as he went around measuring coffee beans. "So," he said conversationally, "how was your day?"
"Hmm? Oh, it was fine. Fine so far. Yours?"
"Oh, going well, going well. No catastrophes so far, you know. That’s always a good measure of a day."
"Yeah. I guess so. I –"
"there have been some pretty funny disasters around here, you know." For a moment, Lydia was almost insulted at the way Todd had just marched right over her comment. Then again, she hadn’t really known what she was going to say – and the fact quickly sunk in that he probably hadn’t heard her. She hadn’t been talking very loudly – barely at all, as a matter of fact. So it wasn’t like it was his fault.
"God, I remember a few years ago when our old coffee machine broke – you see these big things, ridiculously expensive, you know? So although it was getting kind of old, we didn’t really want to replace it. Anyway, I wasn’t here when it happened, but apparently some valves broke or something. There was milk seeping out and steam coming out of a few places. Anyway, it wasn’t really the sort of thing that would have been too bad, except that then this guy, I can’t even remember his name – anyway, he decides to try to fix it. Idiot. The smart thing to do would have been to simply unplug the thing – but then you know that," he said with a grin towards Lydia. She nodded dumbly.
He had grabbed a green-and-white striped mug, just this side of gaudy, and placed it on the counter beside the espresso machine. He took his time while he talked.
"Anyway, he starts fiddling with it – doesn’t have the right tools or anything, doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. I mean, he says he’s good with machines, but he obviously isn’t, because the next thing you know he’s broken some pipe and there’s water and old coffee grounds and half-steamed milk just everywhere, all over the floor, and the guys covered in it and the other baristas are just shreiking about not sure what to do. Some bimbo grabbed paper towels, like that was really going to help. Anyway, long story short, that machine was dead, the guy was fired, and our floor still has some pretty water- and coffee- stains. Hilarious, huh?"
"Um. Yeah. He was just trying to help, though, wasn’t he?"
"Right, lot of help that was!" Todd laughed, a beautiful deep sound. He turned with a flourish and set the tall mug in front of Lydia. "There you go, milady. Shall we proceed outside?"
"We can stay inside today. I mean, if you don’t mind."
"Eh? Me mind? Of course not. Back over to the corner then, is it?"
"Please."
Todd grinned again, and took Lydia’s elbow. She opened her mouth to tell him that, really, she was quite fine, she didn’t need him to escort her or support her or anything, but he was talking again. "It’s really nice to see you again, you know. I look forward to your visits here – that sounds really formal and cliché, but there you go. It used to make my day, even back before we’d spoken so much as two words to each other. Funny, huh?"
He smiled at Lydia, a smile not a grin, true and heartmeltingly sweet. Lydia couldn’t help herself, and she smiled back and didn’t protest at all when Todd gently pushed her into the booth.
"So," she said, a bit awkward, "How are you?"
Todd sprawled out on his booth, not looking awkward in the slightest. "I’m doing pretty damn well – better now that you’re here, of course." He grinned at Lydia. "Weather’s even half-decent."
Lydia blinked in surprise. She hadn’t really noticed the weather at all that day – too tired on the walk to work, too distracted on the way to the café. She glanced out the window and saw a pure blue sky.
Desperately, her mind worked for something to say. "A bit cold out, isn’t it?"
"Yeah, but I like the cold."
"You like the cold?" Lydia’s voice was slightly incredulous.
"Sure. Why do you think I didn’t mind sitting outside with you? Wouldn’t well have done it if I’d hated the chill, now, would I?"
"I – I suppose not."
"But you don’t, do you?"
"Don’t like the cold? No, no I don’t."
"Ah well. To each his own. Or hers, as it may be." Lydia weakly returned Todd’s smile.
"Why – why do you like the cold, then?"
"Why do I like the cold?" Todd rolled his head on his shoulders, until the shell of his right ear nearly grazed his right shoulder. He pursed his lips and looked off to the distance introspectively. "That could be a very long answer or a very short answer," he said musingly.
"Whichevers easier."
"You’re very accomodating, you know that?" Lydia blinked in surprise. "I quite like it. It’s a nice change of pace."
"oh."
"now, where was I? Right. I like the cold because – you know, it makes you feel alive. The feel of the chill on your arms, on your face, reddening your cheeks – you become hyperaware of what’s around you. It – it makes your senses stronger, if that makes sense. It makes the world around you more real."
Lydia sat quietly, listening and considering. Her coat was off and sitting beside her on her booth, with her gloves and hat atop it, but she kept on her scarf. She played with it while Todd talked. He was on a roll, now.
"The cold – it wakes you up. Keeps you from getting too lazy, keeps you accomplishing things, keeps you active. Heat just makes people lazy and indolent. All you want to do in summer is lay around and do nothing. In the winter, you want to get out and ski or sled or shovel the walk or – okay, maybe not shovel the walk, but you get the picture."
"Yeah."
"The grayness, too – you know how when it’s cold, the sky is gray a lot? Lots of clouds?"
Lydia nodded. Flat grayness, stretching across and encompassing the sky, devouring all evidence of change or variety and making the world seem flat and dull and dead. Lots of gray.
"I like that, too. It makes people stand out a lot more – you know, the variety in the way they dress and talk and think. It takes emphasis off of your surroundings, which don’t really matter that much. Also, it’s constant – persistant. That can be really comforting."
Closing her eyes, Lydia nodded again. Constancy. Comfort.
"The light through the clouds is nice, too – nondiscriminatory. It’s soft, and gentle, and you can’t really tell where it’s coming from. It lights everything equally, not really messing with shadows or patterns the way sharp sunlight does. It’s gentle and sort of – well, I don’t want to say flat, but it sort of is. It makes everything look sort of similar, in a nice way."
Nod.
"I like the way the prickle on your skin reminds you of feeling, and I like the way it fels when you’re active and you work out in the cold and your skin becomes superheated and then cooled by the air. It’s nice. So, you see," Todd said, snapping out of his slightly thoughtful mode to become debonair once more, "there are lots of reasons to like the cold. How about you? Why do you like the warmth?"
Lydia paused, thinking. She could feel the heat of her coffee through the mug, prickling her fingers and palms almost to the point of pain. Why did she like warmth?
"I assume you do like warmth, after all, and not just that you don’t like the cold."
She nodded, still thinking. Why did she like the heat? What was it about the summer, and the sun, and fires and heaters and hot coffee and chocolate and tea?
"Well?"
Looking up, Lydia said softly, "I’m thinking."
"Okay. I can wait."
Lydia looked down again. "I like the heat because…" Her voice was soft, surely too quiet for Todd to hear properly. She looked up at a point just to the right of his head, and spoke more strongly.
"I like the heat because it feels like home."
"Like home? How does it feel like home?"
"It’s… comforting. It wraps you up, like a favorite blanket, like a hug. The cold is… confrontational. It’s always biting and fighting and being harsh and threatening and off-putting and… it’s not nice. It’s not caring. It’s not kind."
"And heat is? Like a hug, you say?"
"Well, yeah."
"I just don’t see it."
"I know. But I do."
Todd was quiet for a moment.
"I mean, hot things can burn you – but unlike a cold day, a hot day is rarely physically painful. Uncomfortable for some people, and in places like the desert the dryness will hurt, but not the heat."
"Eh,"
She continued before Todd could interrupt again.
"Warmth is… kinder. Softer. And it encourages you to stop bustling about and just live in the moment, enjoy touches and sensations."
"Laziness, then"
"If you say so. I’d say… indolence, maybe, but not quite laziness. An appreciation of the world around you."
"Right, well I still prefer the cold."
"I know."
"Don’t you find it uncomfortable?"
"the heat?"
"Yes."
"a little – in the way that curling up under a big blanket with a mug of cocoa and a favorite book is uncomfortable. I mean, it’s too hot, and you sweat, and there’s no comfortable way to read a book while lying down and drinking at the same time, but I don’t mind at all."
"eh, okay."
"Uncomfortable the way –" lydia blushed and stopped. The way sex is uncomfortable, she finished in her head, but she didn’t want to sound like she was propositioning him. ‘Yet,’ some traitorous part of her mind whispered, and her blush deepened.
"well, I guess I understand how you can like the heat. Like I said, to each her own."
"Yeah."
"still, though – why do you sit out in the cold every day?"
"I don’t know." Masochism, she thought wryly.
"Eh. All right. If you honestly don’t want to tell me."
"Really! I don’t quite know. I mean…"
"No, really, it’s okay."
"But –"
"I don’t mind. How are you, by the way? I forgot to ask."
Lydia suppressed an irrational urge to apologize. "I’m fine. A little tired, but fine."
"Tired? You don’t look tired."
"Thank you," Lydia said wryly.
"but I guess you could be tired. Why? Should I be jealous?"
He grinned at her, and Lydia blushed to the tips of her ears. "No – I just worked a really long time yesterday, and then went out for dinner with – with some friends."
"Ah, that’s cool. Where’d you eat?"
"Brownette’s."
"Nice place. Friends from work, I take it?"
"yeah. How did you know?"
"you don’t seem like the type to have many friends from outside of work." Lydia fell silent, but Todd kept talking. "So, we never did get to finish our conversation from yesterday, did we? What with you running off to work and all."
"hmm? Oh. I thought we’d finished."
"not at all" Todd had pulled out a cigarette and cigarette lighter, not noticing Lydia’s wince.
"Um. I hate to ask, but – must you smoke?"
"well, I am addicted," todd said dryly, but he put the pack back.
"I’m sorry, truly."
"It’s okay. I’ll live."
"Um – why weren’t we done?"
"We never got to talking about colleges, really." Bereft of their cigarette, his fingers hooked onto his belt or drummed on the table.
"oh. What was your college like?"
Todd smiled at the opening and launched into a long, but supposedly brief, retelling of his collegiate days. Lydia listened, and nodded and smiled and chuckled in all the right places, and asked questions where Todd paused.

"so, what aobut you?"
"What about me?
"What was college like?"
"Crap."
"You wanna be a bit more specific?"
"No."
"Fine. You don’t have to be so curt about it, though, you know."
"Oh, I’m – I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. It’s just – it really was painful."
"Painful how?"
Lydia looked down at the table, embarassed. "I really don’t want to talk about it."
Todd reached across the table and took her hand, rubbing his thumb in small circles across her skin. "Look, Lydia," he said, his voice soft and lilting on her name, "I just want to understand you. I want to understand what makes you tick. You’re a fascinating girl."
"I’m not a child," she murmured softly.
"Woman," he said with a slightly patronizing laugh. "You’re a fascinating woman."
"Not really."
"Not really a woman?" he asked, laughing again. Lydia flushed a bit.
"not really fascinating."
"Oh, but you are. Let me be the judge of that, hmm? What was so painful about college?"
The rapid change of topics confused Lydia, who blinked for a second, lost. "Oh. Well, I had gone to – to." She licked her lips. "To sort of prove my mother wrong. She’d always told me I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t smart enough. I mean, I know she did it with the best of intentions – she didn’t want me trying to do something to hard for me and then failing painfully. But it still bothered me. Besides, I knew I was a disappointment to her. So I guess I wanted to prove her wrong and make her proud at the same time. It doesn’t make much sense, does it?"
"No, but then what in life does?"
"I – I guess so. So I went into a premed program. It was really, really hard. I’m not really that smart at all, and I don’t like blood or pain or death or any of that. And I never have been good at science, and there were all of these science classes, and so – it was hard. I worked really really hard, but it was still difficult."
"Yeah, school can be like that."
"no! Don’t you see, it wasn’t like that for everybody, just for me!"
"lydia, everybody has problems at school sometime."
"I know – and I’m not saying I’m the only person who had trouble pulling an A in college. I’m not even saying I was the only person who struggled, who well and truly struggled, because a lot of people do, I know. I’m just saying that I was one of those for whom it is well and truly difficult, nigh on impossible. I was getting C’s in my best classes, and having to work my ass off for them. And then it felt like I hadn’t accomplished anything at all."
"I understand."
No, no you don’t, Lydia wanted to say. She took a deep breath and instead said, "So I dropped out. It was hard, and so I dropped out, and that’s all there is to it."
"What about socially? Did you have friends?"
Lydia winced. Her voice harsh, she answered, "Yes, Todd, yes. I had friends once."
"where are they now?"
Her eyes widened. "I don’t know," she said shortly. "We lost touch after I left. I think they were disappointed in my for giving up. That’s what they called it, giving up." There was something dark and potent in Lydia’s eyes.
"Where did you go to?"
"I told you. Europe."
"and you say you aren’t interesting! You go off scampering about Europe, and then claim that you aren’t interesting. Come on, Lydia, what was it like? I’ve never been to Europe. Describe it for me."
"European," Lydia said flatly. Todd laughed like it had been a joke. "It was a place. I kept expecting it to be inherently different somehow, inherently better, but every place I went to, it was just a place. People were still people, same human characteristics, acting and speaking differently, thinking differently, believing different things – but, deep down, viewing the world the same way, treating people the same way. Different scenery, that was all."
"Oh, come on. That’s not a description at all."
"It’s the best I can do. Look, I ought to leave."
"You don’t have to do that."
"I really should."
"Is it because I was asking about Europe? I’ll stop asking about Europe. We can talk about something else. Just – please. Don’t go." He looked into her face with an earnest expression.
Lydia softened. "Okay." She sat back down. "It’s just – I don’t like to talk about that, either."
"Why not?"
She gaped slightly. Todd just looked slightly quizzical.
"Why don’t you want to talk about it?"
"Well, obviously, I don’t want to talk about why, now do I?"
Todd winced. "You don’t have to be sarcastic about it."
"I’m sorry," Lydia said automatically. "It’s just – a bad relationship. That’s all."
"Okay. I imagine you don’t want me to ask for any more details, then?"
"No, no I don’t."
"I can do that. What do you think of the latte?"
"Umm…"

Half an hour of small talk later, Lydia reluctantly stood and started to put on her coat.
"Must you – well, yes. I suppose you do have work."
"And so do you," Lydia teased. "Work which you ought to be doing."
"Bah. You, dear," he said charmingly, "are far more important than anything so mundane as… work." He laced the word with as much disgust as Lydia imagined could possibly be squeezed into any word of the English language.
"Come," he said, in a mock-aristocratic accent, "let me walk you to the door."
Lydia giggled. "Yes, milord."
"I like the ring of that," Todd said as he tucked his arm through hers. ‘This is new,’ Lydia thought befuzzled, smelling the scent of his aftershave and feeling the warmth of his body even through her coat. Was that even possible? Surely she imagined it…
"Don’t get used to it," a part of her said detachedly. Apparently, walking arm in arm was awkward – Lydia could feel herself almost stumble once, and Todd’s body was at an uncomfortable angle – because Todd soon slipped his hand out from Lydia’s arm, stretching it across her back instead. His hand nestled in the curve of her waist as he led her to the door.
"Really," Lydia said with a breathy chuckle, "I could have walked myself to the door myself."
"Ah," Todd said, "but that wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun, now would it?"


When Lydia got to the diner, the lunch crowd had just begun to trickle in. Molly wouldn’t arrive for a few minutes, and while Alice took a call on her cell phone, Sally and Marge were serving the tables that were starting to fill up.
Hanging up her coat, Sally nodded at the dishwasher – had she remembered to that morning? She couldn’t remember. What a silly thing to be thinking about, anyway – and looked around for her pad. It wasn’t in her coat – she only remembered to grab her keys and wallet after she checked for her pad and pen – nor in her uniform, and she couldn’t possibly have put it in her chair –
"Aha!" Quite uncharacteristically, the offending items stood on a counter, randomly thrown. She picked them up and stepped out with a smile to serve an impatient-looking table.
"Hello, my name is Lydia and I will be your waitress today. How may I help you folks?"

"Finally learned the art of small talk," Sally commented fifteen minutes later.
"what?" They were fastening order slips to the clothesline that brought them to the cooks – such a primitive system. Today, lydia loved it.
"Oh, don’t think I didn’t see you. Chatting up to that family. Getting rid of their irritatedness – not to mention irritatingness, but I don’t think any amount of talk could get rid of that – quite skillful for a beginner, really."
"Do you know them?"
"Nah, but they’re all the same. Anyway, nice work. You learn fast, once you decide to learn." Sally gave a cheerful grin to Lydia, before plastering on a saucy smirk and heading out to a table of muscly men.
"I hate this part of the job," she muttered to Lydia.
"Why do you do it then?"
"The job?"
"No, the flirting."
"Well – I dunno. It’s just what I do, I guess."
"I don’t do it, and Greg hasn’t fired me."
"Yeah, well, you’ve been known to work 18 hours in a day," Sally grumbled, all traces of her brief good move gone.
Lydia couldn’t help but chuckle at the exaggerated swing of Sally’s hips.

That afternoon, before Sally left for her other job – "what do you do, anyway?" "oh, nothing exciting. Even more boring than this job, and that’s saying something." "Well, what is it, then?" "Really really boring." "Honestly, Sally, if you keep dodging like that I’ll be forced to think you’re a stripper, or something like that." "No – that would be interesting, you see. And better-paying. I’m not interesting, and I’m not paid peanuts." "You are something else, though. Something else entirely." "Secretary." "What?" "I’m a secretary. Sheesh. Honestly, talk about fitting gender roles." – she grabbed one final cup of coffee and talked to Lydia very briefly.
"So, how went it?"
"How went what?"
"Your chat with loverboy? How was it."
"Oh." Lydia paused to think, just a bit, and Sally treated the brief silence as though it were significant.
"Oh, honey," she said, the southern endearment coming without the false southern accent and sounding quite natural despite. "He’s a bastard, isn’t he."
"What? No, not at all!"
"Yes, he is. If he weren’t, you wouldn’t be looking like that. Damn him. I mean, all the cute ones are, but he seemed so nice."
"He’s not a bastard!"
"In that case, considering that you’re head-over-heels for him, why didn’t you instantly said ‘good! Marvelous! Amazing! Orgasmic!’ or something to that affect, hmm?" Sally put one hand on her hip and cocked her head knowingly.
"I’m not in love with him!"
"You’re in something with him. And he’s a bastard."
Lydia was still shaking her head while Sally gave a last few words of comfort and vanished through the door.

She didn’t pay much attention the rest of the day – when Molly or Alice or Marge or Brianna – even Brianna the curmodgeonly was talking to her now! – or Allison or Greg or that sweet dishwasher or any of the cooks talked to her, as she absentmindedly chatted to the customers, as she served her people and left forty-five minutes sooner than usual, because she realized that she could, that her contract let her leave as soon as Alice and Marge left, even if not quite as soon as Sally – the whole day long, Lydia paid it only half a mind.
As a matter of fact, her mind was a confused swirl of endearments and grins and denials and memories – it had been so long since she’d talked about the past with anyone, and images of subtle grins and dark eyes and the play of sunlight on ancient buildings were popping up in her mind, as well as of harsher voices – all the way home.
It wasn’t until she had reached the side of the house, ready to walk around to the back, that anything knocked her out of her reverie.
"Lydia!" a voice called.
Her steps paused, deciding that the voice must have been a part of a memory. ‘I’m going crazy,’ she thought, ‘hearing my memories now.’
"Lydia!" it said again, with more authority.
Her heart somewhere where her stomach used to be, her stomach feeling like she’d vomited it up, Lydia turned and looked towards the just-opened door of the house.
Broken, her voice answered for her. "Grace?"