"Walking in the rain in this neighborhood? Lady, you're lucky you only cracked your head and didn't get mugged."
"I am perfectly capable of navigating a city I have lived in for seventy years."
"Right. Evidence suggests otherwise."
Sadie slapped a square of gauze over the cut and aggressively taped it down. It looked messy—a stark white patch against the woman's pale, bruised skin—but the bleeding stopped.
Sadie stepped back, tossing the bloody wipes into a bus tub. She let out a long, ragged breath, the adrenaline finally receding, leaving behind a hollow, aching exhaustion in her chest.
"I need to call someone for you," Sadie said, leaning against the edge of the booth. "You can't walk home, and you're not staying here. Dale was right—if my manager walks in, I'm toast."
The old woman stared at the tabletop. Her fingers, still trembling slightly, traced the deep groove carved into the cheap laminate by some long-gone teenager's pocketknife.
"My name is Beatrice," she said quietly.
"Sadie."
Beatrice looked up; her expression softened just a fraction. The sharp, assessing gaze shifted into something resembling gratitude, though she seemed to be fighting hard not to show it.
"I will call my driver," Beatrice said. "If you would permit me to use your phone? Mine seems to have..."
She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a sleek, impossibly thin smartphone. The screen was shattered into a spiderweb of dead pixels from the fall.
Sadie sighed. She reached into her apron, passed her meager wad of tip money, and pulled out her own phone. It was heavy, bulky, with a cracked case and a battery that died if it got too cold. She unlocked it and slid it across the table.
"Don't call long distance."