Member-only story
Her Name Was Esther
You don’t know her. Not many people do.
She moved to Phoenix from the Upper West Side of Manhattan after burying both of her parents last year. Everyone thought she was crazy for leaving.
She came out to run a methadone clinic that happens to be across a parking lot from a fake store front that sells guns and cocaine. It’s down the street but she can’t quite figure out east from west yet.
But she has some friends and they come by often and she’s found a restaurant that she likes and goes there several times a week and they know her drink. She still has to remind them of how she likes it. Not too much ice. She orders another.
Not too much ice. Here, you can just use what’s left in the glass. That will do for me.
She is tall and a little matronly looking with a thick midsection accentuated by a thin red belt around her white jersey shirt pulled over a wide strapped bra that isn’t quite sized right and creates bulges from underneath the band when she sits.
She’s been meaning to get sized. Go into one of those fancy stores where they do that and don’t make you feel embarrassed but who has time? There’s so much unpacking to do and she hasn’t done nearly enough.
