“It's as big as your head, Laura,” Josie gaped.
“It's bigger. It's the size of my ass.”
Madge pointedly peered behind Laura, pulled back, and pursed her lips, contemplating. “Nah. Not quite, honey.” Laura gave her a grateful smile. Madge was Laura's new best friend. “You girls need anything else?”
“No – thanks!” Josie had a sausage on one fork, was spearing part of a potato pancake, and had a spoon attacking the ice cream. Laura dipped a piece of pancake in the aioli and stabbed her fork into the luscious pistachio cake, made green by the nuts.
“Who needs sex when you have Jeddy's?” she muttered, filling her mouth with the cake.
“Hello! Me?” Josie waved her hands like an air traffic controller on an airport runway. “Right here. I'd give all this up for what you just had tonight. Wouldn't you?”
Laura stared plaintively at the spread before her. “Uh...”
Josie stabbed the dark chocolate and mint rose off the top of the cake and ate it. “You don't have to choose. Lucky you.”
Lucky. Lucky? Here she sat, drowning her sorrows in fudge-covered cake the color of infected snot while her body still hummed from being double stuffed (note to self: get Oreos on the way home) and as the sun began to make its first entrance on this glorious day, Laura had to go to work in a few hours. Then there was at pesky issue of needing to deal with the fallout from storming out of Mike's cabin, leaving the two people in the world she most wanted to forget wondering what the hell was wrong with her.
“Madge!” Laura shouted. A quick glance down showed her cleavage covered with green crumbs and an embarrassing number of hot fudge drips. It was a meal unto itself. For Dylan...or Mike...
Stop that!
Madge didn't even blink, just tilted her head up, painted-on eyebrows lifting up. If she'd been bald she could have given Tim Curry a run for the role of Pennywise. “Whatcha want?”
“Got any caramel sauce?” That shit cures everything, like Windex or Robitussin.
“Nope. How about peanut toffee swirl?”
“You're a good woman, Madge. My new BFF.”
“Hey!” Josie mumbled, her face stuffed with ice cream. “Wha' 'bout me?”
“You're my old BFF.” Laura heard the door behind her creak and the sound of loud voices. More college guys. Swiveling around, she took a look. Fresh, unlined faces. Wet t-shirt contest-looking tops and running shorts. Sneakers. Backwards baseball caps. Why did they all look twelve?
“Henderson Cross Country” read all the wet shirts. Ah. High school. That's why they looked twelve.
The sound Josie made caused Laura to pivot back, whiplash a distinct possibility. “You pig! At least try not to burp,” she hissed.
“In some cultures it's a compliment, you know.”
“In some cultures, a woman who did that would be stoned to death.” Josie stuck out her tongue and stifled another belch. “How can I be your old BFF when that woman is like a thousand years old.”
“She's young on the inside.”
“She could be the cryptkeeper's mother. Grandmother. Uh – ”
The door behind her creaked open again and she heard footsteps. Then a low whistle from Josie, who peered around Laura. “Hot damn!”
Madge slid a cruet of peanut butter joy at Laura, who speared a chunk of green cake and dipped it in the creamy mixture. “Whuh?” she asked, tipping her face up to watch her friend.
Josie pitter-pattered her fingertips over her heart. “Some day my Thor will come. And this one is mine, Laura. All – ” She halted, eyes growing alarmingly huge, her words ending abruptly in a strangle. Mouth dropped, Laura could see parts of Josie's meal in her tongue.
“Jesus, Josie, shut your trap.”
“Hey – I didn't say anything bad.” Squinting, Josie cocked her head and flinched, suddenly nervous.
“No, I mean literally. Your jaw is almost on the table. Shut your mouth. I can see what you just ate. We're not in third grade.”
“Right,” Josie answered absentmindedly. What the hell was wrong with her? Laura's feeling of comfort, of relaxation was dissipating fast as Josie's distracted body language just added to Laura's feeling of exhaustion and confusion. As she shifted to look behind her to see what on earth Josie was staring at, her friend shouted, “No!”
Huh? “What the hell is wrong with you?”
When she turned around, though, she understood exactly what was wrong with Josie. There stood Thor, cupping the waitress's balls, with a more muscled version of Joey Tribiani grinning madly at him and saying “How you doin'?”
Dylan hadn't been back at Jeddy's in, what, two years? Last time he was here was with a group of guys from work, after a fire, when in the bowels of the night they'd found themselves embraced by soot, dead tired, and starving. No ramen noodles or scrambled eggs back at the station would do, so they'd come here.
His balls greeted him nicely. OK – their balls. Because it had been the trio who had invented the famous cardboard, be-balled icon at Jeddy's, a combination of some wicked bad peyote and Mike's college job working at Newbury Comics. Old Madge had helped, offering up an ancient server's uniform, and the balls had been Jill's idea. Dylan's Joey Tribiani imitation stuck – a little too well, because he was known as Joey until they'd finished college.
“You two,” Madge greeted them, shaking her head, lips pursed in an expression that was either pleasure or disgust. Dylan didn't think the difference mattered much at her age. Or with her temperament. How the hell do you serve drunk frat boys, homeless glue sniffers and post-coital munchie seekers for six decades and not become –
Was that? Mike elbowed him. No way.
No.
Fucking.
Way.