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- I’ll be right with you!

Edward Hopper: Automat, 1927

Nicky turned back to her newspaper. Dodgers lost again. Yankees now worst team in baseball. Magic named MVP.
Same old shit.

The nail of her tumb is still scratching over the surface of the quater someone had left on the table. It’s getting dark out, the headlights of the cars reflect on the wet street.

Another forty minutes before the movie starts. It’s not that Nicky really wanted to go out, though Heather kept nagging at her, so finally she said ‘yes’.

She’s so damned boring. If it wasn’t for me, who would ever go out with Heather?

The waiter came by and dropped the coffee and half of it spilled over the rim.

S’cuse me Ma’am.

- That’s okay.

Outside it was all dark now. Nicky looked at her reflection in the window. She removed a dust particle from her right eyebrow, licked incidently over her lipstick, then shook her head: That perm still doesn’t look natural.

The kitchen door opened and Nicky heart the sound of the teacups clapping. The waiter came out, carrying some stuff for somebody.

She crossed her legs, so he wouldn’t look up her skirt, and dropped the quater in the jukebox. Black velvet in that little boy’s smile …

Nicky, Monique Campbell, to be exact, turned around to look out of the window again. It was now twenty past eight.

How could she possibly know that this guy Kevin would come in, sit down over there, keep staring at her until she looked to the ground. That he would then walk over to her table, while her fingers were curling the ends of her perm.

Hey, what’s up, honey?

- Hi.

What’s going on tonite?

- Nothing much, really.

Tom Petty’s playing down in the city tonite. Wanna come with me?

- I can’t, because …

Oh, come on. Don’t worry about it.

How should she have known that he drives a ’78 Camaro. That he’d kiss her before the show even began.

Yes, she will wonder why he won’t want to take off immediately. And, with a timid smile: What are we waiting in that parking lot for?

Oh, of course she’ll try to keep him off. Once he’ll have her shirt unbottened, she will just cry.

And tomorrow, there’ll be one more unhappy girl.

Oktober 1990