When Mark was laid off, he was forced to drain all of the money from his retirement fund, taking on hefty tax penalties for withdrawing early. He racked up $10,000 in credit-card debt and large medical bills because without a job, he had no health insurance. His house, which he bought at the height of the bubble, lost its value. As a last-ditch effort to try to start from zero again, he let it go to foreclosure and claimed bankruptcy. The expensive contents of the storage unit that he had stuffed his life into when he lost the house were sold at auction. Now, only the sales pitch of his voice hinted at his previous life.

“It was nice talkin’ to you!” Mark said before he left, extending her the kind of handshake you would expect to get after a sales pitch instead of from a friend. He stood up and put on his secondhand blue suit jacket. On the street, every part of life was about survival. It was impossible to think about how to get ahead instead of how to keep your head above water. The people who said “don’t give a man a fish, teach him to fish” about the people who were low-income or homeless – those were the people who never knew what it was like to have all forces in life against their fishing. Still, with the knowledge Mark had, Aria wondered if the emotional crush of having gained everything only to lose it was what kept him from getting back on his feet again.

For whatever reason, Aria had enjoyed listening to him talk. She enjoyed the authority that life had not beaten from the sound of his voice. In his absence, she didn’t want to sit there any longer. She dropped her trash in one of the large blue bins and started to head out of the building when she saw Pedro and Consuelo sitting at a table. Pedro had noticed her before she had noticed him. He got up from the table to walk toward her. Consuelo stayed seated, but waved from a distance.

“Maybe you think we are stalking you, eh?” Pedro said as he approached, shaking her hand but pulling her into a half hug.

“Ahh, I’m so happy to see you again. Do you guys come here often? I’ve never been here before!”

Pedro, who always seemed to be on the edge of laughter, put his hands sheepishly in his pockets. “Not too often, pero when we come here, I think it’s nice. Come, come sit with us,” he said, ushering her over to the table.