Ingrid will wait

This story started from a writing group prompt a year ago. I occasionally pull it out and work on it. It's called Ingrid will wait.

Ingrid’s brown hair appeared black from weeks of filth. The oily strands framed her paper-thin skin, sunken face, tattered with the dirt of the street. Forty years of hard life had mummified Ingrid. Preserved yet grotesque, she looked like she belonged in a tomb. She folded her legs as she lowered herself to sit on the cool concrete.

“Criss-cross applesauce. Criss-cross applesauce,” repeated in her head as she scrunched up next to the building and began rummaging through her bag, from which she pulled a plastic measuring cup and a lime green sun visor with a cracked shield. She stopped the silent chant and began humming The Star Spangled Banner with a hoarse voice. She waited for the people to come out of their tall houses of worship—the buildings so large they appeared to reach the sky. She often wondered how, with so many windows, the workers never seemed to see the world around them.

Lawyers, stock brokers—all suits. She watched them trickle onto the streets around noon and she was there when they returned with their bellies full of luncheon wines and fancy restaurant foods. Day after day they would march past her, pretending to not see her. Maybe they didn’t; she had a way of blending into the bricks and sidewalk scuff around her.

Tall and slender, dressed in dark blue, his bald head reflected the sun like a mirror. He went west on foot toward the deli and seafood house two blocks down, the same as he did every Friday, with a bottle of water to drink. Ingrid had never approached the man before, but today was different. Ingrid was thirsty.

He kept his gaze steady, looking down at his feet as he took long, quick strides. Ingrid cleared her throat and stood. She held out her empty measuring cup as he passed. He glanced at her without turning his head and walked past her, trying to ignore the sickening smell that secreted from Ingrid. She resumed her posture on the ground and rocked some more. He would be back. She would wait.

“Criss-cross applesauce. Criss-cross applesauce,” she said repeatedly.

She used her dirty, stubbed fingernails to pluck at some old, chewed gum that had melted and firmed to the sidewalk some time ago. She slipped chips of it in her mouth as she freed them from the ground. Forty minutes passed. The man was running late, but Ingrid would wait. She would not be welcome at the shelter until evening anyway. The sun visor shaded her eyes from the bright afternoon heat while she watched for the man in the sharp blue suit. When he finally made his way back to his office building, Ingrid was ready. She stood, cup in hand, in the middle of the sidewalk.

He seemed resigned as he approached, and reached into the pocket of his trousers to retrieve some money. The change chinked as it hit the bottom of her cup. He tossed it in without slowing his gait. Ingrid stared into the cup with disbelief, disgust. Her lip snarled and her temper flared.

“Noooooo!” she yelled and threw the coins at the man’s back.

Startled, he turned around. Shocked, he said nothing.

“I want a drink!” she shouted, and threw the cup at him too.

He raised his bottle in the air, swirling the remaining water around its bottom. For a moment they stared at one another, doing nothing, until the man turned and walked into his building. Ingrid shook her head, took her bag and started back toward the shelter, stopping along the way to pick up her plastic measuring cup and the coins she had thrown. Tomorrow was Saturday. She would have to wait two whole days for that drink of water. The man would be back on Monday. Ingrid would wait.

“Criss-cross applesauce…”