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Show 166 the year. So at work her shifts went quickly; no longer was there that double consciousness possible in the slower pace of the rest of the year -where she could stock shelves or even wait on a customer, busy with the store duties in one part of her mind while another, coexisting part was engaged in that private, ongoing center of herself, the mainstream of herself. Now, that mainstream was submerged under a surface of constant activity, the only time she felt the pull of its current was during breaks or lunch hour. She began to schedule her breaks for when Steve was due back in from a delivery run, he occasionally took his then. She did pass him a couple times on her way to the bowling alley cafe. And once he came in and sat at the counter while she was back in a booth. He waved a big hello, but to her nervous disappointment, did not come back to join her. Usually, she learned, he took his breaks while out on a delivery run, and when possible he ate lunch at Tiny Naylors. Or someplace on Sepulveda Boulevard near the airport. But when he was at the store during lunch, he went up a block to the big new hotel-motel lodge complex and ate in the coffee shop. She had always eaten at the bowling alley, but now she began to eat lunch at that coffee shop. The first week of vacation she ate there every day. And although he never came in, she enjoyed the hour: the possibility that he would was always in the back of her mind. Sooner or later, she told herself. It was only a matter of time. And she was comfortable, secure in knowing this. When he did appear, she would be excited-but until then, it was pleasant waiting. |