“Vinyl. Everyone said it smelled like maple syrup when it first came out. City noses. Can’t tell petroleum from spruce.”

“I wouldn’t mind a grilled tomato.”

“I’ve told you, take consolation in all the things that have not changed.”

“Is marmalade too much to ask? Is a toast rack out of the question?”

“Poor Bigbad.” She hauls her phone out. Her shift starts in nine minutes.

“The sausages contain no sage. At any comparable dining establishment in England or Scotland, even a modest rural inn…”

“Soon you’ll start ranting about the tea.”

“This sachet of dust floating upon its lukewarm pool is not tea!”

“Anglos crack me up. You wear this immaculate layer of don’t-touch-me around you no matter how lonely you are or how you ache for someone to love. Get a load of that one.” She points at a gentleman working on the Gazette’s daily crossword.

I have to admit he looks as if he’s planning the annual budget of the Pitcairns. He has brought his special pencil sharpener and sweeps the dust into his cupped hand then drops it in a cactus.

“A colonial Englishman never does his crossword with a pen,” she says. “He wouldn’t be able to erase his mistakes and therefore pretend he never makes any. He’s the only person here besides you, by the way, drinking a cup of tea first thing on a Monday morning.”

“They wouldn’t have it on the menu if nobody drank it.”

“He has a jar in his satchel for putting old tea bags in so he can reuse them. See how he treats his cup like a brother? English people hate getting close to other people so much that their teapots and cups become their companions. Try to talk to them and they glance apologetically at their tea as if to say, Hold it, old chap, excuse me, but I’m afraid we’ve been rudely interrupted.”

She rams her beanie on. “Meet me at the Brewery at noon? It’s Habitant Pea Soup Day, followed by out-of-date Sweet Marie bars, and you should claim your bunk before tonight. The forecast says twenty percent chance of freezing rain. Why are you sighing?”

I prefer Sophie’s tent to the smelly, overcrowded bunks at the Old Brewery Mission. The moon and park lamps glow through its canvas. I love the old walrus Sophie had started painting on it when I met her and has been augmenting ever since, intensifying the creature’s eyes, sharpening its tusks, adding blue to its greyness so it casts blue light on our skin as we lie together. The only reason I ever try to secure a Mission bunk is in case we get bad weather, or Sophie and I fight, or the police harass me, or I desire to receive anything by mail.

Involuntarily I touch my pocket and Sophie winks. “Okay, see you after you write to Mama.”