The next day was Thursday, also known as Cleaning Lady Invasion Day, which I almost invariably spend out of the house. It's uncomfortable being in the way when someone is cleaning, and uncomfortable to watch someone else work while you're sitting around like an indolent slug; but more uncomfortable than being in the way and watching someone work is being in the way and watching them wash your dirty cereal bowls and launder your discarded underpants. On top of which, the ladies were loud and cheerful, a mother and daughter who chattered to each other in what I assume is Tagalog the entire time they were working; if I was there, they'd try to talk to me, so I made it my business to be elsewhere on Thursdays.
It's my only regular day out, especially since the grocery store started a delivery service, and I had my rituals for the day: lunch in a restaurant on Castro, a poke around in the shops, and the rest of the afternoon at a coffee-house with pastries and espresso and a new book. I always dreaded how much walking was involved in this excursion, especially in typically San Franciscan weather, but I loved the sitting part, and the people-watching couldn't be beat. There was always some pretty boy or handsome man in at least one of my stops, whom I could ogle and daydream about.
This Thursday, however, I was reluctant to leave the house for fear of missing The Boy, with whom I was already fully obsessed far beyond my usual voyeuristic yearnings. I hadn't been away from my desk window for any appreciable amount of time in days, keeping a weather eye out for him, all for a few seconds of drinking in his beauty. I was still dithering in the window, fully dressed for outside but for my coat, when Mesdames Herradura Senior and Junior arrived, surprising them more than a little…they had my keys so I could leave before they arrived, and hadn't actually been in the same room with them in over a year.
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