Differential

  Inside, normally warmed Atlantans were in all sizes of winterwear.  "It's all hers," a surly yet effeminate man ("I lived with my mother, two grandmothers, and a sundry of aunts."/"It's not 'sundry' that's inanimate objects."/"Like what?"/"Like dry goods and stuff in a Bermuda hotel shoppe."/ He wrote: It's S H O P, but asked out loud, "Been to Bermuda, have you?") indicated the other side of the room.  He touched my broche and didn't ask, Special. "Where should I, I mean, we sit?"  

  "This is where the broadcasters are meeting Antoine.  Am I correct?" 

  "Madam-wah-szelle, you are.  And behind me," kisses on each cheek, "Are the black and to-be-famous." Others had caught up and were toggling around the Matriarchs.  "I see mine," a relative said excitedly.  "Those are not all black people." Antoine cringed at a Pastor's voice coming over and the tone of his name being said.

  "I'm stepping outside to smoke," I said softly to a mamere who couldn't see that well but who'd participated with the others to arrange themselves so that no handicap was going to make them miss a thing.  "Where you going?"  A husband and wife, dressed hansome-ly, took off rain gear and hung it on hooks in a side door, mudroom, area.  "Oh my God Karen and, and," she was pushed in the small of her back to step forward on her high heel boots, and she reached for both of my arms.  The doorlight behind them showed sun, then crossing shadow, then sun.  Kisses on both cheeks. 

  "Why is there dog being served as food?" A woman dark eyed and slightly stooped over appeared in between the main room and the little side entryway.  A whisper asked, "I thought you said she was better?"  I turned and stifled my instant heartbreak.  "I'll find out," I curtsied. 

  A man and a woman came in the front set of doors.  The woman's lavender-colored silky shirt was sticking to her skin in the spots where rain had pelted her.  The man took off his hat and wrung it out.

  "What's he doing here?" The Pastor was going seat to seat because too many white people.  Antoine: Would you kindly state for the guest register, the purpose of your visiting today.  

  Some people overhearing this got up and left.  A blonde near the man "on the hotseat" in the moment said, "He's mute."  Others looked to see on faces what kind of response that response might bring.  "Come now,"  said the bruised-faced woman, "Don't lie to my Pastor." The man stood and stretched out the hand that was in his pocket.  The Pastor sighed.  "I'd shake but, I can't afford to get sick."  The man put the fingertips of both hands on the party-papered table.  "Name's Michael.  I'm a writer.  In town to see the big ol' airbus."  Antoine held the pen above the registry.  A matriarch put a finger over the column for "occupation".  

     "I gottah bad feeling about this one." The stalwart of Communications told his daughter.  She took this in by breathing through and past his anxiety.  She stood from where they'd catnapped sitting backs against an immovable wall in an under construction area of airport.  When he was up on his feet, she straightened his tie.  "Wrong shirt." She noted out loud.  "And after we ironed the one with a top button." 

  "That pinches." 

  "I meant it too." 

  "This one's worn in." 

  "Black.  In the thermos."  She walked away.  The thermos standing like a silo where she had rested.