Jake Parkinson

She must have eaten a hot dog, or a gyro, something that was wrapped in the paperbacked foil she had flattened and folded into a neat square. The lady with Betty White’s hair eating dinner alone at the Costco food court looks at least 10 years White’s junior. She’s probably seventy something. She’s definitely widowed. And she eats her dessert, an ice cream sundae on a stick, without looking past the treat she holds in her hand.
A kindergarten-aged girl with a ponytail broke away from her dad and turned to the woman at the table.
“We have a puppy,” she said between sucks on a straw.
“Really,” she replied, adding three or four syllables to the word. “And what’s its name?”
“Jane.”
“How nice. That’s my daughters name.”