She started working at the store on the corner during the lockdown. I hadn’t seen her around before and figured she was stuck at home now the universities were closed. She could have been anywhere between eighteen and twenty. She wore her dirty blond hair loose and shoulder length, in bouncy half frizz. She had a nose piercing. She wore grungy clothes that were a bit too large and seemed to hide her frame: dungarees, big t-shirts and shorts, sometimes a headscarf. She might not have even seen the nineties but if she had she would have fit right in.
It was her wrists. I noticed them when she gave me my change. Small, pale, a tattoo of a tiny star. Her fingers were light, delicate, and they brushed my palm when she gave me my change. Our eyes met. She blushed. It was one of those blushes where the meaning is not far below the surface. A look that starts a path from here to the inevetable.
So I kept going back to the store.
It was a quiet afternoon. As I turned to go I said