Living in a Material World

by azephirin

Summary:

We are living in a material world.

Notes:

As requested by theladyscribe; also for 100_women table prompt "evening." This is an outtake from Cracked Stars Shining, and will make much more sense if you're familiar with that 'verse (though there are no spoilers for it). It takes place about four months before the story starts.

Disclaimer: Not mine. And, in the event that you've been living under a rock for the past 25 years, title, summary, and cut text are from the song "Material Girl," by the inimitable Madonna.

It's not terribly late when she leaves the darkroom—around eight, still light out. She hasn't eaten dinner, and her stomach lets her know it, but the subway ride home is short.

Outside, it's the end of a nice day and the beginning of a nice night, one of those tantalizing midspring days that Veronica has decided New York grants its residents every now and then to keep them from killing themselves during the otherwise unrelenting rain that hyphenates winter and summer. Everyone is out as she walks up Broadway towards Astor Place: families, students, street vendors, the ubiquitous hipsters and punk kids, tourists, even (she cocks an ear to be sure, and, yes, there it is) the Mister Softee truck, that invincible harbinger of spring in New York.

At Astor and Lafayette, she's about to go down into the subway when her glance falls across Cooper Square to Seventh Street—ooooh, that Burmese restaurant. They had that fried pancake that you dipped in the chicken curry. There were potatoes, too. Her stomach growls encouragingly.

She starts to turn, to cross Cooper Square, mmm, curry and pancake—

It costs eight dollars, and she has twenty-five left for the week, and she needs groceries and highlighters, and she's supposed to meet Amy for coffee tomorrow, too.

Crap on toast—OK, there's that soup in the freezer that I made last week; I can stretch that with some rice. And that fruit seller at Broadway and Great Jones always has good stuff for cheap. Worst case, I've got that big bag of elbow macaroni. Not just for necklaces anymore!

She turns back around.

The soup will taste just as good as the curry. (It will not! objects her traitorous stomach.) Plus, didn't Kyle say last week that he saw a mouse at that place? (He was talking about one of the places out in Flushing, not this one.) Yes, he said he saw a mouse run across the floor; Veronica is sure of it. Eew. Mickey is a mouse and Veronica's food is sacred, and never the twain shall meet.

Her stomach growls again.

She descends the stairs into the subway station.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of Cracked Stars Shining