A baggy, leopard-printed woman roams the streets of Broad Ripple. She stores a shopping bag beneath her armpit. It's creases match the wrinkles folded into her neck.
When the weather is hot, make-up cracks and melts off her face.
She keeps talking.
Why won't she stop talking?
We're in Starbucks now. A girl walks by outside, her pet kinkajou in tow. Leopard-print woman storms the window. "A kinkajou, a kinkajou!" She screams.
She turns to me, "Look, a kinkajou!"
Lacing a smile with condescension, I offer it to her,
"I'm reading [Steinbeck]," I say.
"Look! A kinkajou!" I think.
A few days later I ask for her name.
"Grace," she says.
"Me too!" I blurt and look at the ground.
No. I'm Hannah. But it means grace.
She extends her free hand. Her thick make-up cracks, streams melt down into the creases of her neck,
"It's good to meet you,
Grace"
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