Old Stories from Toronto / Multiple Personality Disorder

This is me, trudging down the street in the rain, frizzy-haired in sweat pants and scuffed runners, an umbrella tucked under my arm, a damp cigarette hanging from my lips.

“Change for some food miss?”

“Sorry,” I mumble, making what I feel is a sympathetic frown. But I’m not sorry. I fondle the quarters in my pocket: a cup of warm coffee, a pack of gum, bus fare, one-fourth of the way to a frothy pint.

I’m poor at the end of the month and I look it. Two days from now, I get paid. I’ll treat myself to organic produce, tubes of hand cream and freshly pressed clothes. I’ll exfoliate, tweeze, blow-dry, polish, preen. I’ll find myself in a brightly-lit martini bar, sipping luminescent cocktails, conscious of the arch of my back, the height of my chin.