Midge busied herself blowing smoke rings and Gary looped them on his left pinky, the one with the big ring on it. Lance looked at Angie with his hands laced behind his head and his half smile on. Since they had hooked up with Gary and Midge, he seemed happier. He liked to be seen with her. “See what I went n got me?” Gary had nodded his head. “Yep, she’s hot.”     [u r ok]

“That it then, Sugar?’ asked the waitress. A puff of breath parted her bangs and she directed one blue eye toward Angie. The other eye veered right and trembled by itself. “Ya’ll want anything with that?”

“Well,” Angie started, unnerved by the restless eye. “I’d rather not have sugar in the ice tea, if that’s possible. Or is it already made up with sugar in it? Seems it usually is in restaurants down here.”

The waitress—LuAnn on the nametag —leaned her elbow on Lance’s shoulder. “How about that little doll. She plenty sweet already? Awful damn cute if nothing else.”

“Never mind.” Angie shook her head. “I’ll just have water…without that chipped ice, please.”

Lance smiled. “She’s not from around here.”

“Naw.” LuAnn’s working eye followed his slow gaze down to her cleavage. “See something else you’d like?” she asked Angie, then tucked her pencil between her breasts and turned back to the kitchen. No need to wait for a reply.

Angie sighed and stacked the menus. What some women won’t do, she thought. The world is going straight to hell. She shaded her eyes from the afternoon light that streamed through the window and looked Lance over for the fiftieth time that day. He was hot. Good looking and he had money. Everything she always thought she wanted in a man. She would make it work. She would find a way. His wife was probably a bitch, right? Angie wondered why she didn’t think more about that wife, why she thought about Lance as if he could be hers.      [like herpes could be hers or mono]

“Let’s dance,” said Gary to Midge and they moved around the diner, leaning in and out of each other slowly, though the song on the jukebox was fast.

Angie watched them, their smooth movements, their barely perceptible swaying. Midge’s wrist poised behind Gary’s neck. The ashes from her cigarette grew long and curved until there was nothing but the filter and still they did not detach.

Except for the four of them—and LuAnn and the cook—the place was empty. Outside it was Angie’s favorite time of day in late summer, when the sunlight leaned back and sifted long strands of honey through threadbare clouds. The shimmer of light alone could make you stagger.

She felt the heat on her bare shoulders and moved her head to one side so she could see Lance’s face. This is the perfect time of day, she thought, to wind through mountain roads in a small car with the top down, and be with just one other person who will listen to the music you like to hear.     [envy corps, they rock]

But they’d done that. Then Lance had pulled into the gravel parking lot here, shielded his eyes from the sun, walked in, tossed the keys in the center of the table and gone to select Aretha Franklin’s “Chain of Fools” on the jukebox. He was over there singing “Cha cha uh chain” in his best twang and grinding his hips towards her in a way that made him laugh. In spite of herself, she held her chin in her hand and watched until long after the song was over.      [shit she thought, i miss my sis]

Midge sat down at the table and balanced her ankles on Gary’s lap. “Rabbit food,” he grumbled as he funneled through the french dressing on his salad.

Strange, Angie thought, that Gary wasn’t really a good friend of Lance’s. He was just a guy at the warehouse who did what he was told and asked no questions about Lance’s personal life. The kind of guy Lance liked. The perfect friend, he’d said.