Page 3 of Leave a Mark
“Bitch, I was going to eat that.”
Cherise made a face. “No, you weren’t. You were going to put it in your little Curtis-the-Junkie to-go box.” She pointed to the Styrofoam container their server had just delivered. It held a slice of ham, a biscuit, and an order of hash browns, and Cherise was right; Wren would have added the leftover bacon.
“Well, Curtis needs it more than you, fatty.”
This attempt at guilting her friend earned her an eye roll. Cherise had the figure of a celery stalk. Why she bothered with Diet Coke, Wren would never understand. “Curtis needs to take care of himself as much as you take care of him. Then, maybe, he wouldn’t be living in the park.”
“Let me worry about Curtis,” Wren said, ending the discussion.
Cherise just shook her head. “C’mon. I’ve got to get to work.”
Leaving their tips on the table, Wren and Cherise walked out to their beach cruisers. They’d bought the matching set at Walmart two years ago, and every Thursday since then, they met at Dwyer’s Cafe for breakfast and rode their bikes to work. It didn’t matter that they no longer worked at the same place.
Wren tucked the to-go box into her bike’s wicker basket. Everything would slide backward in the container, but Curtis wouldn’t care. She could find him, she knew, on one of the benches at Parc Sans Souci — across from Agave, where she used to work and where Cherise still did.
They pedaled down Garfield before taking a right onto Polk Street. School buses were already parked behind the Lafayette Science Museum to their right, and mothers with strollers pushed their way into the Children’s Museum on their left.
“That’ll be you one day,” Cherise teased, jerking her head at a mother with a double-wide stroller.
Wren laughed.
“Yeah, right.”
They circled the park and stopped across from Agave. Abed, Wren’s old boss, sprayed off the sidewalk in front of the cantina restaurant, getting ready for the lunch crowd. He waved to them before eyeing Cherise and pointing to his watch.
“Bastard,” Cherise muttered as she locked up her bike. “It’s not even ten yet.”
Wren bent over to secure her cruiser to one of the circular bike racks. “He just likes to harass—” She gasped as a sharp twinge lit up her right side, but it disappeared as soon as she straightened up.
“What’s wrong?” Cherise asked, giving her a look of concern. Wren just shook her head.
“Maybe I shouldn’t jump on my bike right after eating my weight in pancakes.”
“You’ve only been doing it for two years,” her best friend said, grinning. “Don’t start slowing down on me now, loser. Come by tomorrow? I close.”
“I’ll be there. Hope the tips are big today.”
“Hope the skin is zit-free today,” Cherise said, making her laugh.
After a quick hug, Wren grabbed the takeout box and walked past the dormant fountains. She squinted against the morning sun and tried to distinguish Curtis among the bundles on the park benches. His duct-taped sneakers gave him away, and she headed his way.
“Good mornin’, Song Bird,” he said, his usual greeting. He sat up before she actually reached his bench, and Wren was glad that he was awake and alert. Still, his eyes were bloodshot, but that was typical.
“Morning, Curtis. I brought you some breakfast.”
“Then it must be Thursday. How’s your friend? What’s her name?”
“Cherise is doing fine, Curtis. In fact, she said to tell you hello.” This wasn’t exactly true, but Wren didn’t mention that her best friend scolded her again for buying the “Curtis-the-Junkie to-go box."
And she wasn’t going to stop, even though Curtis asked her for money almost every time. He’d started three years ago, the first night she’d come off-shift at Agave. He’d asked her for a few bucks and walked to her car on Polk. She’d refused him then. She always refused. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t give him something to eat and remind him that Acadiana Recovery Center was only four-blocks away — a straight shot right down Vermilion Street.
And Curtis had never been aggressive with his panhandling — unlike some of the other homeless people who lived downtown. In fact, for three years, Curtis had made sure that Wren safely reached her car every night.
That was worth a breakfast once a week. Especially now that she could afford it.
“How’s the job? Rocky still treatin’ you right?” Curtis asked, a glint in his eye.
“Rocky’s the best. And I stay pretty busy,” she said, knowing what was coming.
