As she sat there, waiting, the late sun coming dusty through the large windows at the back of the café, a woman walked in on her left. She stalked up to the counter, sighed testily at the lack of service, and walked back across Ellie’s view to the door. She looked at her watch, brushed the sleeve back impatiently, and returned; this time to a large table in the centre of the floor, mysteriously chairless, and hopped backwards onto it.

She perched on the table’s edge; more catlike than birdlike, Ellie suddenly saw. There was a dark sinuousness in her movements, but it was mainly the form of preening that caught her eye. Birdlike she might have turned her head to each shoulder in turn, and briskly brushed down sleeves and then skirt, probably several times; she might have shaken herself on settling, and then smoothed. But catlike she attended to her head primarily, slowly turning back dark brown glossy hair to its casually affected symmetry. She caressed the top of her head and ran her palm down the length at the back to settle roundly at shoulder level. She produced a small mirror and then, ironically, licked her middle finger with a small pink tongue and followed the line of narrow eyebrows. The one swinging leg moved slowly, suggesting a languid tail; the neat black foot giving a small flick at the apex of each backward swing, propelling the leg forward into the tawny grey space before swaying back again. She wore colours that managed to be dark and vibrant at the same time; the top patterned rich swirling reds and greens over the contouring black skirt. Surprisingly, the stockings were very dark, almost opaque.

Fascinating though she found the woman’s behaviour, Ellie found herself becoming increasingly worried about the strength of her own reactions to her movements. She watched, heartbeat suddenly filling her ears thickly, as the fourth finger blotted any roughened mistakes from the full, dark red lips; her breath caught as the kick pleat at the back of the skirt flipped open each time the swinging leg came back again. She noticed how the still foot had half slipped from the matt black high heel, and that the woman made no attempt to rectify it. Whatever her efforts in grooming, they were not for present company. And always that little, ancient voice inside her: Look at me, look at me, don’t despise me.

Ellie shifted slightly in her chair, pulling herself more towards upright as she tried to marshal her thoughts. The woman looked towards her, and smiled, eyes assessing the unstyled, light-coloured fluffy hair, the jacket worn obviously for comfort, and the casual clothes suited better, surely, to a younger, slimmer woman. Ellie smiled back, straightening until her back began to hurt, hoping that it looked nothing more than friendly.

The woman set down the mirror, and, imprisoning it with the leaning hand, spoke, her eyes addressing the space three inches above Ellie’s head.

"You got the right time?"

"Er, yes." She spoke thickly, and, clearing her throat, fumbled under the sleeve of her jacket for the cheap black digital.

"It’s seven forty-seven, no; forty-eight."

"Thanks." She checked the gold bracelet on her left arm petulantly, automatically ridding it of microscopic flecks of foreign matter. She spoke again.

"You’re English, aren’t you?" Ellie nodded mutely, aware of how muffled an English accent appears to a New Yorker. "I can always tell."

"You been here long?"

"Nearly two weeks."

"Oh." She flicked at her wrist again. "He shoulda been here fifteen minutes ago. My train was late," she explained. It sounded like a rehearsal. Flick. "Men! They always letcha down, don’t they?"

Her voice had produced some kind of shock in Ellie – the harsh nasal vibrations jarring all those smoothly disturbing sensations. It was like all her hairs being brushed up the wrong way after an intimate massage. Not that she’d had many of those.

"I wouldn’t know." Ellie suddenly decided that her train could easily be said to be nearly arriving, and collected her belongings. She looked at the table; the woman seemed to have lost interest in her very rapidly, now absorbed in her nails. She looked up vaguely as Ellie passed her, but only into some moderately entertaining middle distance. Maybe she hadn’t heard the last sentence.

Ellie made another sudden decision.

That she didn’t care.