[reflective]

Everything was reflective. From the shine off the black and white checkered floor, to the Formica tabletops, the chrome ceiling so impossibly clean, and the pool of condensation dripping off the Mega Cup’s smooth plastic perfection. In each curved a rainbow of neon: “ORDER” in blue, yellow “FRESH CUT FRIES”, and an orange “OPEN”. He squinted, patted his pocket, and leaned to look past Ashley’s platinum curls to the table behind her. No luck, that one didn’t have an ashtray, either. Fuckin’ smokin’ laws, he thought.
“What’s the most horrible thing you could imagine?”
Rain pattered against the broad windows. A sticker on the wall by his elbow told him in capital letters to join the dark side. War jittered his foot. How wet would he get if he plastered himself against the door to smoke that last Pall Mall rattling around in his pack?
“Other’n bein’ here?” he said.
“Yes,” she said, and her mouth twitched, “If you didn’t hate everything. What’s the worst thing in the world?”
She pinched her straw between two fingers and sucked a sip of strawberry shake. They’d sat here long enough that he imagined it was more milk than shake now.
“If you could think about something other than cigarettes,” she added.
“Get outta my head.”
She allowed a smile this time.
“Well?”
“Well,” he said, with a slight nod, then rolled his shoulders, “Nothin’. Don’t wanna imagine it. Don’t even wanna think about it.”
Using the end of her red straw, she tipped her cup up on its edge and made it rock back and forth.
“So, you know what it is.”
Her earrings tinkled like a wind chime when she cocked her head to the side and watched the cup go back and forth.
“Don’t we all?” he said.
Back.
“What is it, then?”
And forth.
“I told’ju, I don’t wanna think about it.”
She let the cup make a circle, then sit. She traced the circumference of the lid, over the Braille choices for diet or root beer, and took another sip.
“You’re already thinking about it,” she said.
“‘N I don’t want to.”
“What is it?”
He scrubbed the sudden itch out of his ear, jiggling the cartilage until he could be sure it was gone.
“No.”
“Telling me might help.”
“This why you brought me here,” he said.
“Are you going to tell me you didn’t know?”
She blinked slow, her black fanned eyeliner exaggerating the slow rush down and up of her lashes–like a cat watching from the edge of her perch, calm but alert. His tongue searched for the ring that used to pierce his lip, looking to rotate it through the old hole like he used to.
“How long would’ju let me lie if I did?”
“Not long.”
He nodded and leaned back.
“It won’t.”
“What won’t?”
“Help. Talkin’.”
“Are you sure?”
He followed the itch to the nape of his neck. The stubs of his fingernails caught on a fine silver chain. He pinched it between his fingers, sliding down to the raised definition of the nautical star charm dangling between his clavicles.
“Ain’t gonna bring’er back,” he said, and wound his fist around the star.
“It will.”
The points dug into his lifeline.
“In our hearts,” she finished.
His eyebrow jumped toward his hairline.
“‘N love’ll conquer all.”
“Don’t make fun.”
“‘M gettin’ a smoke,” he sighed, and slid out of the booth.
She grasped his arm before he could get away, and looked up at him with those big, aqua eyes of hers; the kind that made people who didn’t know better think she had insight. That she was “psychic”.
“Would you rather make love?” she offered.
He glanced at her hand, and back down, eye to eye.
“I only sleep with red-heads,” he said.
War shook her off and dug out his pack for that one last smooth cigarette and his plain Zippo, which would stay lit in the wind and rain outside.