Lemon Pulp and Sugar

It was early in the morning, but the sun didn't seem to care, sending its rays burning and boiling hot all across the city as if it were noon. The crows were too exhausted to keep at their cacophonous din, and sat with their beaks gaping open, hopping a little, hoping to find a puddle of stagnant water.
She had her dupatta wrapped around her head as usual - a pink one today, matching the kameez she wore. She had her crutch at her side, and limped over to the stall, where he stood assembling his goods, getting everything ready for the day that lay ahead. He beamed broadly as she came up - pink was a really good colour on her, it brought out the pink in her cheeks when she smiled, and she smiled at him now, sending his heart into a frenzy of rapid beatings.
    She sat on the ground, and her dupatta slipped off her head, but she was not bothered by it. She put the crutch beside her, and looked around, picking at the bits of gravel that littered the footpath near her. The heat was intense, and beads of sweat had begun to line his lips, but he was used to it, and in the early morning, with so few people around and her for company, he was feeling quite blissful.
    “Your sales should be good today, it's so hot. People will be lining up for shorbot all day”, she grinned.
He looked at her. “I'm sure it's a good day for you too. People might be feeling kinder, they'll spare more today-”
“No, that never happens. No matter how bad it is, they just ignore me. Or shoo me away. Like I'm a fly.” She laughed, genuinely amused at the idea of her being a fly, and he froze at the sound of it - what he wouldn't do to hear her laugh over and over again…
She looked at him, and then looked away. People had started to come out on the streets, cars rumbled and rickshaws trilled. The buses themselves seemed to heave with sweat, vibrating with the obesity of the passengers it held, inside and out. She sighed and got up, dusting the back of her over-worn kameez and fixing her dupatta. A strand of hair hung limply before her face, her eyes wide and bright and sad. She balanced herself on her one foot for a moment before using her crutch to steady herself. It was time to be the beggar she really was, but could not quite come to terms with. The five minutes with the shorbot-wala were the only times she ever felt real, a person on her own, not just another beggar in the sea of thousands who depended on the fatness of other people's wallets and their generosity to gain a meal at the end of the day.
He knew she was getting ready to leave, to begin the life she dreaded. He wanted the dupatta to fall off again, so he could look at the way the light danced on her hair. He wanted to lean forward and push back the strand that hung so teasingly before her oval face but he resisted the impulse, just like he kept resisting the urge to ask her to marry him, for what could he give her, really?
“Bye, then” she said.
“Wait”.
She stood, surprised, and he quickly made a glass of lemonade, squeezing in generous measures of lemon pulp and sugar. He handed it to her, red in the face, but beaming.
“It's on me. Have it, it's good.”
She looked at him for a few seconds, his eager face, the glass in his outstretched hand, the gamcha slung over his shoulder - she looked at him and some of her misery wore off.
She took a sip and she smiled.