another step
Yesterday was October 25.
I drove over to the Grove to see if I could catch Kate still at her work at Rib Ranch, where she rolls the silver ware and does pre-lunch and dinner prep. There are only two of them doing that— Kate, and a nice young man who is also high functioning Autistic. The restaurant is a happy place at that time. The floors are wet and cleaned, voices waft from the kitchen (Kate says when I ask her if other workers are there, “Yes, they speaking Spanish. I don’t know a word they say.”) She, and the other fellow sit at their own booths, with stacks of perfectly wrapped napkins and tidy piles of silverware. They tell me that not a dirty spot goes unchecked by her focused scrutiny.
Anyway, I have missed her, she’s done her work and gone. I check the Coffee Bean area where she so often goes to buy those calorie-laden drinks which I always chastise her for. But she isn’t around. I reach her on the cell phone. “I’m going back to the apartment,” she tells me. I have to yell at her to find out exactly where she is, so I can see her. “At the bus stop by the 99cent store”.
SO I hurried into World Market (CostPlus) and picked up a bottle of wine to get my parking validated. The man asked for my ID!! I said you must be kidding. No, he said. He didn’t appear blind.
Then I drive up the street and spot Kate at the corner by the bus stop. She has already spotted me —I still wonder how she knows when and where everyone is way before the rest of us. I offer to drive her to her apartment where I know she won’t want me to come in, and even though I know I should go check things out (clean clothes, food?) I am too tired and drop her off and do a U-turn home.