Soundtrack, "In Between Days" by The Cure
Thursday, July 27, 2085: 11:30 am
“Charlie! I feel like I haven’t seen you in three months and eighteen days!”
“You saw me twelve hours ago.”
“Too long,” Ingrid said, then taking stock of the room, crates of old, broken things. “Why are you eating lunch in a utility closet?”
“So that people won't try to talk to me. How did you find me?”
“My mom said you ate up here. Not much of a hiding place, huh?”
She sat down next to him, she wanted to scoot him over and share the old pillow he sat on, but he wouldn’t have liked that, so she didn’t and instead just sat on the cold tile floor. She was close enough to him now to smell a faint whiff of motor oil and something burnt. She wanted to bury her nose in him. She grinned.
“Are you high?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Totally. You want?”
“I’m working,” he said.
“So?”
He laughed.
“Last night of the summer fair, tonight, be there or be square.”
Charlie shrugged lazily. “But if I be square, I can have pizza and MacGyver.”
“Charlie, you hurt my heart.” She was only partly kidding. She made a pouty face at him. “Pinky promise me?”
He looked at her pinky. “I don’t give out pinky promises that easy.”
“Playing hard to get?”
“Harder than you know.”
Ingrid smirked at him, thinking about hard things. “You said ‘hard’.”
They stared each other down. There were mysteries in his eyes and she wanted to decipher them. She wondered if she would like what she found.
He moved finally, crumpled up his empty bag of chips and started to get up.
“Your choice,” she said. “But it’s gonna be rad.”
“How rad?”
“Elephant ears.”
“Hmmm...” He pondered this. She pondered him pondering this.
“Hot and sweet,” she said. “So, so good.”
“It’s hard to turn down elephant ears.”
“Then don’t. Come on. You know you want to.”
“We’ll see,” he said. “I have to go back to work now.”
“See ‘ya later, alligator,” she said.
“In a while, crocodile,” he said.
—
I was so confused by "elephant ears"! I don't think we have anything like that here, so I was taking the term literally!
ReplyDeleteBut anyway, I'm starting to wonder what Natty might come back to, if Ingrid keeps sniffing around Charlie like she has been!
Ha ha ha, OMG, I had no idea they were just an American thing. Now that had to be a funny mental image! :D
DeleteIt's funny too, because if you just Google "elephant ears" you get an even split between the pastry, a plant, and actual elephants, lol! In case it's not clear to anyone else reading, I did mean the pastry. ;)
That's funny about lack of elephant ears in Australia, they just call it Fried Dough in the south, don't know about out here as they lack in fun festivals with fried treats, its kale juice and cashew cheese.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Carla, I'm a bit concerned about Ingrid and Charlie and where things will end up. I'd be sad if Charlie went with Ingrid, but that sort of thing happens, and Natty has been a poor girlfriend.
Oh no, kale juice at a festival! Honestly, I do like kale in my juice, but that's just kind of sad, lol! I also just realized in game they call them "funnel cakes" and that's mostly what we see here on the east coast. I think "elephant ears" must be a mid-western thing.
DeleteAnd well, at least Charlie isn't moping around all sad and weepy anymore?
Haha, I love the lingo between these two! Okay so Charlie isn't off having fun being single then. He is thinking about & missing Natty as much as Natty is thinking about & missing him? Ingrid is so cheeky and doesn't hide anything. I don't imagine Charlie being happy if he got together with Ingrid but then are they just the type of friends that flirt with each other. Interesting dynamics! :)
ReplyDelete