book of days serial #6

Drive. He then forded Broadway in the striated crosswalk and went over to 18th Street Café. It was one of those clear, white summer mornings in Los Angeles that is left over from the early spring just as the high fog sets in. The rains were over. The hills were still green and in the valley across the Hollywood Hills you can still see snow on the high mountains. In Beverly Hills the jacaranda trees were just beginning to bloom. But in real time, it was white, the high fog was still, the lawns were brown and summer was petering into decay. The French doors of the café were open in the alcoves, Patsy Cline hummed softly yet clear through the leaves of plants by the entrance, a sparrow stood on a tile table near the door, and she was behind the counter. The usual: he ordered a bagel to be toasted and a cup of coffee to be dispensed. While he smeared marmalade on the bagel she smiled over at him from the counter. Her thin upper lip disappeared into her olive skin and her hair bobbed. The seconds of interaction ordering coffee from her promised made being exiled from home immediately after dawn almost a blessing.