Athena was having a grilled cheese sandwich, an orange, grapes, chips from a fifty cent bag, and orange juice. She hunched across from Hugo who ate a turkey panini with kale and tomatoes, a one dollar bag of unbuttered popcorn, and pineapple slices. He drank water, supposedly rare water, from a hidden island in the mediterranean sea.
“I tell you,” he said. “This water is brought to Chicago only for a select few and I am one of them.” He sipped the water slowly closing his eyes every time. “Want to know what it does to you?” he whispered. With a full mouth of grapes, Athena glanced at her watch. In ten minutes their lunch would end.
Before I worked in a cubicle, I would measure trees in the middle of Millennium park. On a Thursday, I was measuring a tree. The largest tree I have ever measured to date. It had a tree trunk with a radius of two feet and a half and was fifty feet tall. An orchestra played as I rocked on my heels. The measuring tape, in my hand, touched the pavement. During the violin solo, I was tapped on the shoulder. A little woman in her mid-thirties stood before me.
“I see you have an affinity for nature,” she said, her blue droopy eyes travelled from the measuring tape to the tree. “I’m Estelle. Guess how old I am?”
I stumbled backwards. The tape scraped against the pavement. “Uh, um, thirty-five?” I replied.
Estelle poked my chest. “Nope! Guess again!”
“Thirty?”
“Nope. I’m seventy-five!” she said and her smile exposed wrinkles around her eyes. She had to be at most thirty-seven. Not seventy-five. That couldn’t be, but then she let me in on a secret.
Hugo reached for one of Athena’s grapes and raised his water in a fragile toast. “This here will keep me looking twenty-five forever.”
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