“You don’t wear your hair parted in the middle when you have a giant forehead like that!” Glenn goes on. She grabs my phone again, then creeps on the face, pinching with her thumb and forefinger, to make it larger. “You get some bangs like a normal person, or you part your hair on the side, and you cover that shit up. And you don’t talk about adult coloring books like they’re going to change the world and solve everyone’s problems. I mean, seriously, coloring books? To solve writer’s block? What are we, children?”

I love Glenn. “You could have your own show.”

“What kind of show? A yelling-about-annoying-people show?”

The group at the next table—tweedy ancient Harvard-types—stare at her, then turn back to their conversation. Or try to.

“Oh look,” she says, loudly enough for them to hear, which is her intention. “I’ve offended them with my honesty and my brutal truth-telling.” They try even harder to ignore her, but once activated, Glenn will not be ignored. “I know what you’re thinking,” she says, directly to them now, with a pitch-perfect Boston accent. “Who am I to make fun of someone’s giant forehead and how they do or do not wear their hair, when I myself have no hayyy-ah.” She pulls the hand-knit cap off her head in one quick tug to reveal her bald chemo-head, a sight I’m not used to, no matter how many times I’ve seen it over the years during her illness.

The group is in motion now, trying desperately to gather their things—their books and papers and briefcases, their cardigan sweaters and light jackets—it is October and chilly, of course, in New England, which can’t make anything easy for anyone, ever—so they can make their escape. “Oh no. I’ve scared them!” Glenn rolls her eyes at me, full of disgust. But as the people flee and the space between Glenn and me is suddenly empty and quiet, her eyes fill with tears. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

“Don’t be.”

“I’m such an asshole.” She turns quickly to look at the group she scared away, visible now through the glass windows at the front of the shop, whispering and walking close together on the sidewalk. “They didn’t do anything to deserve that.” She puts her hat back on and blows her nose into a napkin. “I just get so angry sometimes. I can’t control it.” She turns around again, trying to gauge if she can possibly catch up to them, to apologize, or maybe to just explain the reason for her rudeness, but even if she were healthy and quick the way she used to be, it would be too late. They are already gone.

“Don’t worry about it,” I say, but Glenn is slumped in her seat. She makes circles around the top of her glass with her finger.

“Tell me something right now, right this second, that will take my mind off the fact that I’m dying and that I scared off some incredibly uptight but completely innocent people who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”