It was Friday. It was evening. The week was done.
We were sitting outside on the patio at Austin Java sipping iced teas. The dog was alternately drinking from a bowl of water, sitting on the wall behind us watching the traffic on Barton Springs Boulevard, and contentedly lying in my lap.
A group of guys was sitting at a table not far from us, pointing across the street at Flipnotics and watching the cars as they drove by. A college girl was working on a research paper just across from us. Her boyfriend had given up and left a few minutes after we arrived, but she was still at it, reading papers on her laptop, sipping her tea, listening to music on her iPod. A grandmother who had just arrived was desperately trying to scrub clean the patio chairs and table before her grandson sat down.
Our food arrived.
Trudy had pasta. I had a chicken satay sandwich and mashers. The iced tea tasted really, really good. And then Gladys Knight and the Pips came on singing Midnight Train. I took a bite of my sandwich and looked over at Trudy with tears in my eyes.
She smiled.
You know, the news is so bad today. The horrible stories kicked off the front page of BBC are superseded by ones even worse. I can’t bring myself to talk about them. But…
Friday. Iced tea. Cool breeze. Good food. A content dog. And Gladys Knight.
A small, welcome miracle.