Zest Lit Issue 2, October 2013 | Page 169

wall.

‘What am I going to do now?’ He searched the dregs of his coffee for an answer.

She was thoughtful to the last chew, her final sip of her tea. She blotted, reapplied and blinked into the napkin dispenser as he knew she would. He pretended not to watch and even harder not to care.

‘We get out of here.’

It sounded more like a command than a suggestion, which he planned to follow either way.

The waitress came as they glided out, picking up the folded bills and a tip she didn’t expect.

‘I got a card,’ she announced proudly more to herself than the cook behind the grill. It was from the cute guy with the far away eyes, the scraggly hair and the print sweater. She liked him even more now.

The cartoon was of a doggie in a tuxedo. He waited at the bank of the shimmering pond, giant hearts in his eyes, a bouquet of dainty white flowers in his left hand. His right hand reached out toward the figure in the water. He smiled hopefully at the pretty swan as it looked out toward the horizon.

The words were written in scrawled longhand – ‘How can you not see what is right in front of you?’

She watched him through the window as he trailed behind the slender lady in the clean white suit. She read the words as he tried to close the gap between them, then again more slowly as they took hold.

And nodded.