A Normal Moment

She pulled into the drive through. "What are your plans for today?"

Her daughter looked up from fiddling with the radio. "School. Practice. Homework. Bed."

"Do you have enough money?" she asked.

Her daughter shrugged. "Guess so. I wanna bagel."

"What kind?"

"Garlic. Maybe Robby Peterson will stay away then. I swear he's enough to drive me insane."

"What did he do?"

Her daughter waved the question away. "Nothing."

"May I help you?" the tinny voice squeaked.

"Large coffee with sugar. Two chocolate donuts and a garlic bagel," she answered.

"Toasted with cream cheese," her daughter put in.

"Toast the bagel and put cream cheese on it," she repeated.

"Anything else?" the tinny voice asked.

"No," they answered in unison. In a moment of companionship, they looked at each other and giggled.

"So what did Robby do now?" she asked as they worked their way around the building.

"I told you. Nothing."

"How much?" she asked the man at the window.

"Five thirty-one."

She dug through her change cup and pulled out thirty-one cents and handed it to him with the five she took out of her wallet. She set the wallet on the seat next to her and accepted her coffee and the bag. "If you don't want to tell me its fine," she told her daughter.

Her daughter dug through the bag and discovered her bagel. "You finally got that I wasn't telling you?"

She sighed and pulled out of the drive through.