Switchblades Preferred

Ursula stiffed it through her shift, with a new notch in the game of resignation building in between her shoulders. He brushed her elbow with his fingers several times and she did not respond at all. Inwardly, she sneered. Setting the container carelessly onto the scale, she traced it back to the source, or as near as she could get. She thought, but didn’t say aloud, you see that line of demarcation back there by the trees? Back there, no, further still? Flirt, that’s right, go on, flirt. Joke about hooking up before you get married, and I will fake laugh and slow-burn full of rage because behind every joke is some shred of truth. Keep making passes at me under the cover of good humor and comedy. That makes it totally acceptable. Do you realize, I’m counting the hours until I will never have to see you again? Yet, sometimes it is enough to hold a set of aces in your hand. She wondered and frowned at the line of demarcation and how everyone came waltzing on over it, cool as you please, as though she’d sent them a gold-leaf invitation.

She fled early, speeding down the golden-lit business park boulevard home, the corner of her eye fixed on a frozen plume rising from one of the office complexes. Shed a layer of snake skin joyfully as soon as she got in the door and pulled the postcard from the pages of a book.
It said little. Albuquerque. She thought of heavy snow as I-40 wound through the rock and then a blaze of lights sprawling out beside and below them. She thought of the green dash lights and crimson taillights painting his features. She thought of the enormous, brilliant rising moon. It raised more questions than it answered, but its tangibility soothed. Remote, yet remembered. She wished he'd let her try to help. She hoped he didn't think she'd make things worse.
"Who told you there was no such thing as real, true, eternal love? Cut out his lying tongue!"

La Morte de la Fay

Two girls ordered and sat next to a window spattered with the remains of an aging hurricane. One of them spoke of Mexico with reluctant longing. The other couldn't stomach the syrup in the bottom of her coffee and silently agonized over the unknowable predictions of her grinds. Together they lay out before them a map of their lives, while slowly, slowly chiseling away at a slice of key lime cake or peanut butter brownie. Outside lights began to struggle against the misty, damp gloom swept far up from the Gulf to the August graveyard of all such storms. Each girl was grateful for the weather, allowing for opened tall window sashes softly billowing curtains and sweaters usually reserved for Oktoberfest. Also the cool, wet pavement of the parking lots lent a brightness to the tentative shapes of their future.