Ellen came over to my table, setting down her coffee, cigarettes, and a
couple of left-over pastries. For some reason I had expected her face to
be different, soft in contrast to her harsh persona, but it also looked
rebellious. She offered me one of the pastries and we chatted together as
we ate; for some strange reason she attracted me greatly, she was gutsy and
brash but at the same time coquettishly feminine. Grandi had finished up
in the back and from habit I knew it was time to take off. The crisp air
was a sharp contrast to that of the cafe as Ellen and I walked out to the
now deserted sidewalk.
When I found out that she lived in the old district about a mile East I
offered to give her a ride home, realizing that she probably wouldn’t take
me up on it as I gestured towards my motorcycle, but she accepted anyway.
I rocked the bike off its footpeg and started it up, listening to the motor
complain after sitting for ten hours in the sun. Ellen got on and grabbed
me around the waist with her left hand, holding her cigarette out of the
wind the right and pressing up against my back as we raced away. The city
streets were devoid of anything at this hour, only cardboard boxes and
empty cups blowing around in strange little whirlpools of wind and empty
buses wandering through their routes.