After Dinner at McDonald's

                Chris Longo

                Stacy sips her Diet Coke.
                She looks out the window at the highway, the sky;
clouds weave a tapestry of deep dull dirty gray; golden sunlight
illuminates its seams and edges; her eyes burn. She blinks.
                "So yeah," Scott's saying, .dropped it. I can't tolerate a
class where half the reading list consists of shit we did in high
school, right? Like, you can only read fucking Gatsby so many
times before you stop pitying him, y'know, and figure the guy got
what he deserved. Or close enough. Am I right?"
                "I guess."
                "I am." He helps himself to a handful of the fries
splayed on a napkin between them, dripping with ketchup and
glistening with grease. He chews with his mouth open.
                "What time is it?" she asks when he swallows.
                "Time for a smoke. Are you gonna actually eat any of
that?"
                "No." She stares at the fries for a beat.
                "What? Now you're not hungry?"
                "I'm fine" I had some."
                "A few, y'know, but not a lot. We've got, like, three more
hours to go."
                "I don't care. My stomach hurts."
                "Fuck. Well, what's wrong with it now?" Then, more
quietly: "What's wrong with it? Seriously."
                "I just feel like shit, Scott. I have a headache."
                "You always have a headache lately."
                "It's true," she says flatly and resumes her inspection of
the Interstate.
                He gathers the remainder of their meal onto a small
brown plastic tray and then retrieves a Camel from the tattered
pack protruding from his pocket. He rolls his cigarette between
the thumb and forefinger of both hands and offers a lopsided
smile.
                "Want one?"
                "No."
                "You want one."
                "I don't."
                "Yeah, you do. You're craving it."
                "I'm not. I need to quit."
                "At some point, yeah. Not now though."
                "No better time than the present."
                "How very. . . trite," he says while rising from the table.
                "You used to be a lot more fun, y'know."
                "I know."
                Stacy watches him walk across the restaurant and throw
away the contents of their tray; she sips her soda; she looks out
the window again; a few raindrops tap the glass. She sighs.