The People We Meet....

The coffee was good. Robust, black, piping hot, and the pastry as fine as you would expect in Paris. I used my fingertip to pick up the flakes that dropped on to the green marble tabletop that was just large enough for coffee, a roll and perhaps a book or newspaper if one had had the good sense to bring either. I stared out the window once again. The view glistened, rainsoaked from a pre-dawn downpour, smelling of flowers and yeast. The voices around me were as meaningless as the muted honking horns and clanking bells of vendors outside the building.

I sat on a bench seat close to a corner, shielded on my left and behind by several tall ferns that were abundant throughout the hotel lobby and cafe area. Even mostly hidden as I was, it was no use. This was not home. I was not relaxing. I had been a fool to book an extra day in Paris after the business convention. I could not even close my eyes for being afraid that someone might be compelled to ask if I was okay and I would not understand a word the person said.

"Sissy!" That was my brother's voice in the back of my head, which I have fought with on a regular basis and had for almost 30 years now. I couldn't disagree with it today. "You are a scaredy-girl," I said to myself and I wished for a cigarette even though I'd given up the habit over five years ago.

The next thought was an apology to the 21st century feminine ideal. I am not a macho man, and I believe woman are my intellectual equals, probably exceed me more often than not in the courage arena, and I had no business thinking such thoughts.

To underscore the fact, Mabel appeared.

"Is this seat taken?" Before I could say anything at all, she squeezed between me and the corner, her head pushing against the nearest fern frond.

"They should have left by now!" Her gray-white brows furrowed while her mouth twisted up on the left. She glanced over her shoulder then ducked her head like a guilty schoolgirl. "Lean out in front of me and then talk to me like I'm your grandma."

She could have been my grandmother, dressed in gray double-knit slacks with a sewn-in crease--the kind that never wrinkle. Her shirt was denim with embroidered cats tumbling in and out of the breast pockets. She had the shirt knotted at the waist over a red T-shirt and got away with it, too. She was slender and not in the least frail. Her hair had been dark; I could tell from the few strands that had as yet refused to gray. Her hair was bobbed just beneath her ears and she had lots of it.

"I'm supposed to be in bed with a sciatica attack," she whispered. "My group is headed to yet another tourist trap and I just can't take it. I'd have to take up cigarettes again just to get through it."

"So what do you want to do today, Gram?" I improvised when she ducked her head again and elbowed me, hissing, "Talk!"

"Oh, Garrett you decide, Dear. Did you rent the car?" she squeaked in some alien voice.

"I did what you told me. Got the car and plenty of maps."

"Maps! Brilliant! Let's see them."

I looked at her out of the corner of my eye and spread my empty hands out in front of me.

"Oh," she whispered. "We're pretending. I forgot." More loudly she added, "Well that wasn't so smart, leaving them in the room." She stole another glance over her shoulder then relaxed visibly.

"I waited a whole 45 minutes after they were supposed to be gone, and they still almost caught me. I can't stand old people. They're too darn slow!" She paused and grinned at me, her green eyes sparkling with mischief. "I'm Mabel Stewart, by the way." She reached out and shook my hand with a better grip than some of the girls I had dated. No doubt that hand was kept in shape simply having to bear the weight of the rocks in the three rings she wore.

"I'm Todd Smith. Happy to meet you."

"Todd? You're not a Todd. You're a Garrett. No matter. I owe you breakfast at least for rescuing me. Will you join me? I'm starved."

Being starved myself--for English speaking company--I agreed.