Each Friday, she’d have a latte or a pastry to celebrate the passing of another week. It was an occasion. A moment of ceremony. She sat in her favourite seat, behind the stairs on the top deck of the bus. Sip, and watch the school children walk to school in their red jumpers and large backpacks. Glee warmed her like frothed milk. A smile seeped across her face. The stress percolated out of her tense jaw and stiff shoulders. Ahh Friday.
After the summer Monday’s started to taste bitter. A coffee seemed like the perfect palette cleanser. So on Mondays she started to go to the deli. Monday mornings became another special time. Sunday blues were replaced by brewing anticipation for the small pleasure that the coffee on the bus offered.
When Friday came along, it didn’t seem right that the end-of-week celebration was so similar to Monday’s. So on Friday she would have coffee and a pastry. On the bus, in her favourite seat, she would nibble at a sausage roll and the week’s tension would dust off of her and flake onto the neighbouring seat.
A couple of Wednesday’s after that, she was particularly hungry as she waited for the bus. Her stomach yawned and she could feel it grinding with acids. The bus was late too. She popped into the deli. When she ordered a roll he anticipated “and a coffee!”. He seemed pleased that he remembered her. She couldn’t rob him this victory, so she nodded.
Then Friday’s ritual. Coffee and pastry. She ate her roll in the queue for the bus. The latte lasted half the way to work, as she leafed through her phone.