“It was efficient.”
“She wasn’t being cruel.”
“Most people are not cruel. They are curious.”
Rosa put coffee in front of me.
“I don’t need protection from every curious person.”
“No. But you need lunch.”
She returned with an egg sandwich.
“I didn’t order.”
“You traveled today.”
“So?”
“Airports remove the nutritional value from food.”
“That is not science.”
“It is observation.”
I took a bite.
The sandwich was better than anything I had eaten while traveling and worse than the one Annie had dropped across the table on her first morning.
Rosa watched me.
“What?”
“You are comparing.”
“I am eating.”
“Same face.”
“You cannot identify my comparison face.”
“You have been eating here for six years.”
“That does not grant diagnostic authority.”
“I learned from your mother.”
I looked up sharply.
“She called you too?”
“No.”
Rosa smiled.
“Not yet.”
She wiped the next table even though it was already clean.
