8
Coffee at the Chinese Food Diner
I looked over the dilapidated old diner. The floors were covered with ancient, cracked, washed-out yellow tile. I wasn’t sure if there was a pattern on the floor or just cracks where dirt had accumulated so deep and hard it couldn’t ever be cleaned.
We sat in a small, four-person booth. The bench seats were made of cracked red vinyl that was stiff with age and covered with stale grease. The top of the table was nondescript, grimy, gray linoleum. I was almost afraid to put the sleeve of my jacket on the seat or the tabletop.
Luckily I had decided to wear jeans downtown today. I hadn’t been on Pender and Dunsmuir for a long time. Though Tom worked downtown, I only came to pick him up or drop him off on very rare occasions, and he didn’t work around here
