Downtown Starbuck's sketch

She didn't order anything. That's why she sat by the window near the door hoping not to be noticed. It was as if the act of not buying coffee exposed her rather than her appearance: dirty slippers, dingy pajama bottoms, a frayed wool cap covered her oily hair that once must have been a blaring obsidian mane, now tangled into strands of silver, twisted and knotted like a mop.

She wore a fleece jacket with tags hanging from the sleeve. This new garment was ineffective, the mix-matched fresh fleece only further defined her impecunious disposition. She glanced around the coffee shop, then stared out the window, sitting sideways in the chair, her elbow on the table, waiting and clutching a plastic bag in her fingers that swung like a pendulum clock.

Outside a bus rolled to a stop and she started to stand, then sat back down. Her gaze shifted from the window to the door. A white-haired man walked in. He was neatly trimmed, beard the same length as his hair, thick and scholarly. He joined the woman and also sat sideways in the chair, resting his leather-patched elbow on the table while unbuttoning his Tweed jacket. He also had a plastic bag. He reached in and set a boxed juice drink and an orange on the table. The homeless woman looked at the objects.

"Did you spend all the money?"

"What do you think, man?" she replied suddenly and violently aggravated. He put the the two items back in the sack. "Do you want McDonald's?"

The woman did not answer. She stood up and followed the man out.