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: : : —SO I'M WORKING WITH YOU tonight, Joshua says.
—Yeah, says Freya. She sips from her cup of coffee, frowns. —I'm stuck on a twelve-hour shift because Denise called out.
—Well, says Joshua. —That sucks for you. But— he smiles —it's kind of nice for me.
—Is that so? Freya says.
—Uh huh, Joshua says.
—One would think that you'd prefer working with Denise.
—How do you mean?
—Well, I mean, I know you guys are a thing and all.
—Uh, Joshua says. He looks down and kind of smiles. —I don't know that I would say we were a thing, exactly.
—Oh no?
—Nah, Joshua says. —I mean, yeah, we fooled around a couple of times. But, you know, whatever.
—Whatever?
—You know, Joshua says. He scratches the back of his ear. —I mean, I don't think I could be serious about someone like Denise.
—And why's that? says Freya. A part of her is thinking about whether she could sleep with him. If she really wanted to. She doesn't, though. Especially not now that he's openly speaking ill of a woman that he's been involved with. She tends to avoid hooking up with men who do that because she can't shake the suspicion that in another month she'll be the one that they're trashing. But there's no harm in contemplating it, she thinks. She's already made her decision. Long ago. And he probably wouldn't have her anyway. He probably wants someone who's skinny, like Denise, she thinks.
—Why couldn't I be serious about her? Joshua asks. —Uh. He pauses. —I don't want to say too much here. But she's not exactly, uh, the most responsive girl I've ever, you know, been with.
—You mean in bed, Freya says.
—Well, yeah.
—And this came as a surprise to you? Freya says. —I mean, think about who we're talking about.
—Yeah, yeah, I know, Joshua says.
—So you're looking for someone who's a little more—
—Lively?
—I see, Freya says. —Interesting.
—So why'd she call out anyway? Joshua asks. —She sick?
—No, Freya says. —She said something about her dad. He was in some kind of accident?
—Yeah, Joshua says. —Like twenty years ago.
Freya hears him, but the words don't make immediate sense. She grunts her assent anyway, and they go on to talk about something else. His words lodge somewhere in the back her mind, though, and she will feel nagged by something that she can't put her finger on throughout the night; it won't be until tomorrow, when she wakes up in Joshua's bed, that she will abruptly recall a conversation from last summer, after she returned from Texas, talking about her father's funeral with Denise, and she will remember that in this conversation, Denise, perhaps offering up a gesture of comfort, said yeah, my father died, too, when I was real young.
They get to the end of the night and close the store.
—God, Freya says, bundling cash into a deposit envelope. —I'm totally wiped out. This long shift just killed me.
—What you need, Joshua says, —is a drink.
—You got that right, Freya says.
—Listen, Joshua says. —My place is right around the corner from here. I've got some Maker's Mark.
—Really, Freya says.
: : :
:: Year entries
Index | << | 56 | >>
:: Freya entries
Index | << | 12 | >>
Further Reading:
Recent input in the Narrative Technologies weblog:
:: Towards a Methodology For Producing Internet Games : by David Mark Glassborow
[fresh as of 3/17/03]
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