Caffeine and calories, not the empty substitutes found at the Perk, but the real thing.So she went to Joanie’s. She hadn’t been there since that last, terrible day with Elizabeth, and the caffeine and grease that coated her senses before she’d even walked in the door smelled like memories.This used to be their place, hers and Elizabeth’s. They’d come here and spend hours together after whatever mutual activity they’d signed up for that month. Particularly in the winter months, when Elizabeth wasn’t working and after Mindy got laid off, they’d drink bottomless cups of coffee and eat half of whatever treat the other ordered. Mindy hadn’t had a friend like that since college. She’d moved to San Diego for her master’s degree, where she didn’t know anyone, and the women—and men, for that matter—in the lab where she worked were an insular, prickly bunch. It got easier when she met Peter at a party she’d forced herself to go to, but then they moved and had the kids, and then Carrie got sick and they moved again.
