be real

I sit on a train, the coat unzipped, my city backpack on a seat next to me. I have already taken my reading glasses and a book to be ready for the forty minute ride. 

My phone starts blinking and I see my daughter is  returning s missed call. 
I am sitting in the first wagon of the train. Are you coming?” I ask
"Yes, I’ll be there in five minutes," she replies.  
And she is. 

She sits next to me in the 7:20 pm train and we head home.

I have come from my coaching/supervision course and she from her acting class.

She tells me about her day, including watching a morning performance with her cousin (both skipped school), a lost pen preventing her from doing math homework, and missing lunch because she couldn’t decide what to eat besides a banana. The teacher in me should wave a finger for skipping school. As a mother I agree with my sister that the senior and first grader going to watch Astrid Lindgren's "Ronja" performance outweighs a day of classes.

I tell her about the supervision session that ended with dancing and about the delicious asian noodle soup and strawberry-rhubarb dessert. 

She is hungry and I give her my emergency muesli bar that is a bit flattened by months of travel in the bottom of my bag under laptop, cords, books, water bottle, and wallets. My daughter notices it has passed the expiration date. She decides to take the risk and eats it anyway. 
She is thirsty and I give her my water bottle. Her own bottle is empty because the cousin drank all the water. 

I start reading my book - a collection of literary criticism, theatre reviews and essays. Oh, the writer is so skillful with the words. She speaks directly to the reader in this friendly over the table kind of way, including her likes and dislikes, wonders and surprises, boredom and disappointment, connecting mundane everyday moments with playful literary devices.

My daughter is on the phone, scrolling Pinterest, chatting with friends. 
Then she finds that one of the titles "Garbage and Roofs" is funny, snaps a photo and asks her friends to guess the author. They don’t.

“Be Real time.” she says, “Let’s have the book also on the picture.”

So I close the book and lift it up. We lean closer to each other and she takes a photo.

“Send it to me too," I say, thinking I need it for my be real slice.