“Thanks.” Lifting her hand from the smooth countertop to take the latte from the girl with a bat tattooed on her neck and faded pink hair left a quickly disappearing imprint of heat and sweat.
She turned, fishing for her keys in her purse, as they clattered to the floor, her headache blossomed into boisterous laughter bouncing from one side of her skull to the other, and the expensive suit and fat tie behind her scooped them up and dropped them graciously into her hand.

Again, “thanks.” and a soft scuttle to the door, grabbing the brushed bronze handle and tugging she stepped backward then forward into the milky sunlight. A small girl zoomed past into the line of an SUV searching for a slot and a danish, her free hand shot out wrapping firmly around the tiny arm before yanking the now unhappy child backward, “Are you ok?” followed by a “Thank you!” and a suffocating hug from the mother. A weak smile, sweat, and worry rolling down her spine, “be careful, okay?”

She coughed again into her hand, rubbing her nose, Viral residue on a countertop, pink-haired barista, keys, a hand, door handles, a child’s arm, a mother.