You’re not going in there

A young man says this (loudly) to his friend outside my shop. He is out of the car first. She is out of the driver’s seat second. He is joyful. ‘You’re not going in there!’

She stands in front of him, hands raised, palms outward, uncaring, ‘Get out of my way.’ She, languidly and easily, gazes right into him.

‘All right, you can go in there.’ He spins, grinning, round and round as though on roller skates. She remains motionless, content. I looked at her looking at him doing his thing.

‘Well, go on. In you go.’ He clattered past my door, tapped the glass and disappeared toward the bakery.

She came in, still unhurried and still content.

Young Woman Reading by Samuel Melton Fisher