Each morning before the sun rises from behind the horizon, Kusum wakes and begins to boil a pot of tea. She sits on the back porch of her flat where she has a priceless view of the Ganges. Every day since she’s been back, she has sat in the same whicker chair drinking tea from the same maroon cup and watching the sun rise to light up the water. Without fail, she spies the same person engaging in his morning routine.
She doesn’t know who he is, but she thought him strange that first morning back in this holy land. She had not slept and stayed in the whicker chair staring into darkness until the first bits of light came from the horizon. She noticed a figure approaching the water’s edge. She watched as the man bent forward and scooped water into his hands. He brought it up over his head and let it fall over his body, his arms stretched up toward the sky. He began his ritual when the farthest edge of sky was still black with tiny stars and he finished when the sun could be fully seen. Kusum was bothered by him at first because she didn’t understand his habit, but each morning as her grief trickles from her eyes, she sips tea and watches him, depending on him to stay the same.
Every mid-morning the light is pale in Albuquerque where the same two waitresses begin their opening duties at an Italian restaurant. The Native American one is the beautiful one and the Italian one is told she is sweet all the time. The light is brighter when the hostess arrives and it’s even brighter when the first guests trickle in. By the time the light has reached its brightest, the lobby is littered with people waiting for tables and all the waiters have arrived for their shift.
The beautiful waitress smiles when she rushes past a line-cook. “You’re looking good today, Mama,” he says with his Mexican accent. He is the one all the rest of the cooks go to for translation. Escobar and Luis and Omar and Camilo go to him for translation. “¿Estás enojada conmigo?” they ask when the beautiful one ignores them. Sometime she says she’s busy and that she isn’t mad and they ask the line-cook who speaks English to tell them what she says.
The sweet waitress greets her guests and means it when she asks how they are. When the elderly lady at table 14 asks for hot tea and honey and for her pasta to be cooked longer so it’s softer, the sweet one says, “Of course.” She smiles at the elderly lady and means it when she tells her she likes her purple hat. She tells her that it suits her skin tone. She tells another guest that she likes her blue purse and she means that too. Two of her regulars, the doctor and the doctor’s wife, come and ask to be seated in her section because she is so sweet. She tells the beautiful waitress that her new hairstyle is fresh like Spring and the beautiful one says thanks. The managers and other waiters and cooks all tell her they like her new hairstyle because it’s fresh and reminds them of Spring.
The beautiful waitress gets out of work before the sun sets and she goes home where she still lives with her mother. The sweet waitress works a double-shift and closes the restaurant. She is the only waitress there when the last guest comes into the lobby with a book tucked under his arm. The hostess asks him where he would like to be seated and he says, “I’d like a table that’s clean in a well-lighted place if you have it.” She gives him a seat in the sweet waitress’s section where she really means it when she asks him how his day has been.
