“Is this your first time?” she asks, looking down, eyes lined with disdain.
I extend my offering again, hopeful something improves in the second go-round.
Embarrassed, at a loss for a clever retort, I wonder, “Would saying yes even make it any better?”
“No, um… it’s not. But it’s my first time here.”
She has a shy grin, but boredom is her defining feature. It always happens this way with these girls.
“First-timers tend to go a little overboard.”
This is the moment I’m supposed to realize I’ve done something tremendously wrong, awkward; something in serious need of correction. But the defects that she sees in me so quickly are ones that I’ve long ago noticed in myself. Ones that will not disappear. They are me.
“Right… right.”
She can’t have graduated high school yet. It’s written in the way she holds herself; in the way straightened hair falls across her face. Her youth so vivid in the ill-fitting neon shirt.
I look down again at the mess I’ve made. Though I should only feel sadness and disgust, there’s something redemptive in the inspection of what I’ve done.
“That’ll be $5.35,” she adds, as I fumble for my credit card.
“I don’t need a receipt.”
I pick up my Peachwave frozen yogurt, filled to the brim with frozen fruits and boba balls, and walk out the front door, past the midget-sized, amorphous plastic chairs.
As the spoon grabs granola and yogurt, I think,
“I’m going to enjoy this one.”
