She told me I didn't sound happy.

"I'm at work!" was my reply. I'll dance a parade later.

She called because she wants to take me out to lunch, a nice lunch at a nice place. I have to pick the nice place.

I argued that I wasn't unhappy but as soon as the words left my mouth I didn't even believe myself.

...

She was in front of the Seven Eleven with a 16oz Dunkin Donuts cup and a cigarette. It was an odd place; the side walk is too narrow for a sitting beggar and high volumes of pedestrians. I couldn't hear what she was saying but her body was communicating she didn't appreciate the grief she was being given from financial district's lunch crowd.

"Care to make a tax-free donation?"

"Tax free, huh? Do I get a receipt?" I asked as I stopped to shoved two singles in the cup. She was young, blonde, dirty and wasted. On my return trip, four minutes later, she asked again.

"You got me going that way already," I said with a hand motion.

"Yeah. That's right. You gave..."

"Two," I held up the appropriate amount of fingers while making a scissors motion without missing a stride. I made the mistake of looking her drug weary eye. She was beat and broken and her hard lived live came at the cost of her youth. Two bucks wouldn't even buy her a half a pack of smokes.

If she had been a cat, I would have taken her home.