The Fortunes of Indigo Skye Read Online Free PDF Page B

twisting around and dropping crusts to the floor,
and he's listening to Joe and me. He nods. Depressed, he mouths,
overemphasizing the first syllable, Dee, from across the room, his top
row of teeth showing wide and white.
    Trina suddenly needs to use the restroom, which
is past the guy's table, naturally. It's a pheromone parade--they're waving and
throwing their batons and eating flames and doing cartwheels as Trina saunters
by the guy's table. Roger who?
    But Nick's the only one watching Trina's ass in
those pants. Well, me too, but I'm not watching in that way so it doesn't count.
The guy doesn't even blink or break his gaze from the window. "Full and
resounding failure," Jane says next to me, behind the counter.
    Trina takes about two seconds in the bathroom,
obviously not long enough to do anything legitimate in there. Then she's out
again, swiveling those pheromones like lassoes. She stares directly at the guy,
but it's Trina's eye contact zeroing in to its target, and zing! Hitting the
side of the guy's head.
    Funny Coyote's breakfast is up, and I set the
plate in front of her. Trina slides into her adjacent booth. "Gay," Funny Coyote
proclaims.
    "You think?" Trina says. She sounds hopeful,
but it looks like she might cry. She pushes her plate away from
herself.
    "You're not done." I can't believe it. Trina
usually eats every bite. I've seen her put her finger to a bit of crumb and lick
when she thinks no one is looking. Harold's pie--nobody pushes away Harold's
pie. You eat it even if you have to unbutton the top of your pants to make
room.
    "I've got to go on a diet," she
says.
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    "My God, don't be crazy," Funny Coyote says,
which is pretty hilarious, because she calls herself Bipolar Babe. "Relax. He's
gay, I'm telling you."
    "I don't know what I'm gonna do," Trina
moans.
    "Trina, you're talking about a couple of guys. Big deal. A man is not water or shelter. Or a lottery ticket," I
say.
    "Maybe the kind of lottery ticket you spend a
hundred bucks on, just to win five," Funny says.
    "Harold's pie is a requirement for
living," I say.
    "Really," Funny says, munching on a piece of
bacon. "Give it here if she doesn't want it."
    "Maybe I need a boob job," Trina
says.
    "Oh my God," I say. "Don't even joke. I hate
fake crap like that," I say. "Sure, I'll take a little cancer from silicone just
to have some cleavage. Sheesh."
    "No kidding," Funny says. "And what happens
when you're sixty and have forever-twenty tits? Freak show."
    Trina moons into her coffee. Funny pulls out
her notebook and starts to write. The man stays longer this time. The two ladies
leave, and so does the couple with the toddler, who went from cute to monstrous
in fifty minutes as his parents did the Now-honey-that-makes-Mommy-
upset public parenting routine that
always causes Jane to turn her back and pretend to stick her finger down her
throat. Thanks to little Hitler, the floor looked like its own galaxy of toast
crumbs and scrambled egg bits. I consider asking the Vespa guy if he's all
right, but he seems to be in that private place you shouldn't just barge in on.
The only privacy some people ever get is in their thoughts. So instead, I wipe
the floor clean and curse at parents who grow little dominatrix children and
then set them free in the world to be the kind of adults who let everyone else
pick up
    30
    their messes. You get some pretty strong ideas
about child rearing when you work as a waitress, let me tell you.
    Finally, the guy lifts one long, elegant finger
in the air, gestures for my attention. Sometimes that kind of thing can piss you
off, but it all depends on how it's done. Some people have a demanding
stab-the-air finger that makes you want to flip your middle one back at them.
They are usually the people who ask you for this or that on the side and cooked
this way or that way, and with the strawberry pointing counterclockwise and the
parsley with two leaves only. Most often, this