Food Court
In Thirtieth Street Station Charm could easily be mistaken for an urban missionary in her favorite brown and pink cabbage rose dress made of "don't worry be happy" synthetic fiber and her sensible thick white strap sandals. You know, the nice ladies with pamphlets in hand who sit in pairs on the wooden pews just outside the video rental shop. "Would you like something to read?" is their unchanging script, but they wait for eye contact before they unreel it. Tonight Charm was the victim of this mistaken identity, even though these nice ladies never sit alone, never beyond rush hour, and never with anything to eat. At least, not on duty.
There Charm sat with Hershey Park, Sesame Place, Philly Zoo, and Transit Museum brochures spread out like playing cards in her left hand. She had picked them up at the information desk. Places to take her smart-as-a-whip toddler grandson.
There Charm sat a bit dazed, which was plausible after an evening out with her friend Chlorina, a film fiend. (Of course, Charm would never think of Chlorina that way—even though she had just sat through a silent movie in a foreign language. Chlorina called it a retrospective.)
There Charm sat with a double scoop of frozen yogurt in her right hand. Before taking the el home, Charm had ordered an ice cream cone. Immediately alarms rang in her head: calories, cholesterol, diabetes, angioplasty—all in the voice of her friend Chlorina, devotee to book clubs long before Oprah. In two blinks, Charm had switched to fat-free yogurt.
There Charm sat when a masculine voice right above her head intoned, "I'll take one, but it won't do no good. My ex-wife says I'm going to hell." The Transit Museum brochure was plucked faster than a free sample of cigarettes. Charm watched two well-shined shoes shuffle away, stop, turn, then shuffle back.
"I'm not sad, I'm just drunk," the voice offered without a stammer or a slur. "By the way, are you married?" Without waiting for an answer the shoes softly shuffled off again. Charm tried to put her thoughts together. Did she, should she, have an opinion? Watch your back, Chlorina always advised.
"She never said anything about the top of my head," Charm mumbled. She crunched into the cone as a pigeon, another train station squatter, strolled up to Charm and stared.
"Chlorina never said watch my feet, either."