First Meeting

Second in a series

It wasn’t the first time they’d met.

This town was full of those kinds of places.

The stained and scarred counter, the chairs

with rips in the cheap vinyl seat covers,

the bathroom with broken stall doors.

 

She was like a swan, he thought,

in his thick-fingered poetic ramblings.

Her graceful neck and dark eyes,

deserving of the same somber beauty.

 

But he’d never stopped hoping.

He’d pat down his hair and rub at the

smudges of grease on his pant leg,

and call for another draft.

 

He sat where he could watch her in the mirror.

That gold dress that started a fire and made

him think of words he remembered from

before he left high school.

Wanton. Tawdry.

Still, she was better than any woman he’d had

before, by a mile.

 

He waited until the end of the night to

buckle up his confidence.

Her eyes had lost their expectant twitch

toward the door each time it opened.

 

She met his gaze as he stood up, this time.

He watched her hand, with red fingernails,

brush something away from her face.

This time he didn’t look away.