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The waffle craving is too strong to ignore, but instead of shamefully showing her face in the diner for the second time in one day, a quick trip to the street market is decided.
Daffy stands in the freezer section, her soaked sneakers tapping the floor to the 2000's pop, faintly wandering through the fluorescent air.
Four options present themselves through the frost-covered, glass doors; buttermilk, chocolate chip, blueberry, and cinnamon sugar. The decision is too difficult. How about one of each? Besides, with Adrian taking the week off, there really isn't much of a reason to even go to the diner. She'll need to stock up for the long week ahead.
Stacking the boxes in her arms, a remorseful thought that she should have grabbed a basket on the way in digs at her waning pride. The boxes fit under her chin and she wobbles through the aisles to the cash register.
Daffy's cheeks burn as she presents them to the young cashier who gives her a disappointed look. A grumpy twitch of his eyebrows translates to, "Really? You're so fat, you need four boxes of waffles?"
A strong need to apologize tugs at her lips but the high schooler's face speaks warning. Right. Why would she need to apologize? It's is her American right to buy as many waffles as she wants. Daffy lifts her chin, sliding her card defiantly through the pay-pad.
The rain continues to pour as she steps out the door and her frizzy, rain-kissed hair becomes drenched before she reaches the front steps to her home.
Entering the kitchen, Daffy tosses the bags on the counter with a half greeting to Charlice.
"Did you get any bananas, Daffodil?" Her aunt asks over her reading glasses, eyeing the large bags that appear to consist of only waffles.
Daffy opens the freezer, catching an escaped bag of chocolate chips as they topple out.
"No, sorry, I forgot." The boxes of waffles are shoved into the ice tray between some frozen pizzas and a small bag of a mysterious contents, frozen into a brick-shape. The chocolate chips are wedged into a small space next to the last two hot pockets and some old otter pops.
The freezer door slams satisfyingly, making the jars on top clink. Daffy claps her hands in finality.
Charlice's sewing machine groans as her bony hands stuff it with two layers of denim. The rickety table rocks back and forth, a cup of tea almost sloshing out the sides.
The kitchen is oddly shaped, a little nook in the far end, wide enough for the table, sewing supplies and an old loveseat, draped with a crocheted afghan. Two large windows overlook the backyard, a gray, soaked area, looking mundane under the heavy blanket of rain clouds. Daffy puffs a sigh as she falls on the dusty loveseat, her legs spreading over the armrest and back.
The room quiets to a clicking hum as Charlice sews steadily and rain taps on the windows. Her reading glasses reflect the little bulb in the machine, sending small bits of light bouncing around the room. The girl, sprawled on the chair, watches her aunt with a thick feeling in her throat.
The rhythmic timing of Charlice's motions, the clicks of her pedal and the foot clamping up and down on the fabric, it calms Daffy's thoughts and she finds her eyelids drooping.
Charlice's glasses sliding down her nose, she glances over to Daffy.
Her hair drips into a puddle on the floor and most likely the chair. She tsks, realigning her work in the machine's mouth.
"No sign of that boyfriend of yours?" She can't help herself but ask, seeing her niece's altered mood in no better repair since that girl bounded out the door this morning with a full face of slept-in makeup and those disgusting shoes she refuses to throw away. Charlice tsks again at the site of them dirtying her afghan.
YOU ARE READING
Life is Funny Like That
Romance[Completed Novel] Burned by his past, Adrian is a salty human with a knack for avoiding romance like it's the plague. But destiny has other plans for him, specifically a girl with laundry detergent eyes and a serious addiction to waffles. It's lif...
