“Don’t take it personally? Fuck you.”

“Charlotte, please.”

“No,” I said, loud. “Stop it.”

I was trying not to cry. I drank, not looking at him. A stream of cars passed, fluttering the trash in the gutter. Someone tossed a cigarette from a driver’s-side window. It hit the street in a bouquet of sparks.

“Charlotte, we can still be friends. Sonja wouldn’t mind. I care about you. That hasn’t changed. Maybe after a while we could all hang out. I think you’d like her.”

“Sonja wouldn’t mind?”

“All I mean is, I don’t want to lose you. We had some good times, you know?”

He was wasted, slurring. That made me mad, that he had gotten drunk before he could tell me. That he couldn’t do it sober. Maybe he had been drinking with her before I came to meet him. I felt anger, but also an unexpected gratitude. This pain was better, more manageable than my grief over Danielle. I was thankful for the distraction. Even so, I couldn’t listen to him anymore. I got up to leave. He put his arm out, reached for me, and I knocked him away. The contact energized me and I shoved him. It felt good so I did it again.

“You asshole,” I said. My voice sounded cold.

He grabbed me and tried to hug me, but I pushed him away. I left. I didn’t say another word, didn’t look at him. I went over to my bike, unlocked it, and rode unsteadily over the cracked sidewalk to the street. At the corner I turned off Richmond and crossed the neighborhood to the bayou. It was buggy along there. The water was still pretty high and I could hear it rushing. The trail was smooth and dark and abandoned, except for hovering clouds of gnats. I rode as fast as I could until my legs were tired and I didn’t feel anything anymore and the last few days seemed like something I might have imagined.

CHAPTER FOUR

When I woke dressed in yesterday’s clothes, it was eight o’clock already. I was late for my shift. The café had called three times. I dressed quickly and made it there by eight thirty.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Andrew, the manager, who was steaming a pitcher of soy milk.

“Jesus, Charlotte. You were scheduled for two hours ago. Did you even brush your hair?”

I started to respond but he’d already turned to a waiting customer.

“I’ve got a meeting,” he said to me. “Take over. We can talk about this later.”

In the next hour and a half I dropped two drinks and accidentally gave three people regular instead of decaf. I spilled the bottle of vanilla syrup onto the black mat, which meant I’d have to spend my break washing the mat and the floor so it wouldn’t draw ants. My coworker Jessie suggested that I work the register instead. I shook my head. I knew if I had to make eye contact with anyone I would cry. Around eleven I had time to drag the mat to the floor drain in the back and hose it down. I covered Jessie’s break up front, and sucked down an espresso and half a cigarette before the lunch rush. At two my shift ended. My whole body felt sore and sticky, and my head throbbed. I drove home.