The pharmacy door behind us clicked open, and an old man with a grey cane stepped out into the damp air.
He looked at my wet hair, then at Evelyn’s shoes, but he did not say anything before he opened his black umbrella.
He walked down the street with slow, careful steps, his boots splashing in the shallow puddles that had formed near the curb.
Evelyn waited until he walked around the corner before she grabbed my hand.
Her hand was thin and cold through my sleeve, her fingernails digging slightly into my wrist.
“We are going to walk over to the restaurant parking lot,” she said, nodding toward the bright yellow sign across the street.
“Can we go inside the lobby?” I asked, looking at the warm light behind the big windows.
“No,” she said, pulling me along the crosswalk. “We are not dressed for a place like that.”
The Golden Spoon sat behind a row of neatly trimmed hedges, its wide glass windows glowing with a warm, buttery light.
We walked across the asphalt of the avenue, the rain splashing up against my bare shins.
The water in the gutters was deep, rushing toward the metal grates with a low, sucking sound.
The parking lot of the restaurant was filled with shiny cars that did not have rust on their fenders like ours did.
We stopped near a green metal dumpster that smelled of old grease and wet cardboard.
Evelyn’s rusty blue sedan was parked three spaces away, its tail pipe coughing out pale grey smoke into the dark.
“Why did we park all the way back here?” I asked.
“Because the front spaces are for the people eating inside,” she said.
She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out her car keys, her knuckles white against the brass ring.
