Fiction Friday
This is a story I wrote just now, based on a dream I had last week. The dream was a lot more complicated, but I could never fit all of the details into less than 1000 words.
Tinfoil
Kelly left her spoon in her bowl of half eaten soup and crossed the restaurant to talk to him. She left her purse unattended on the chair. Her wallet and car keys huddled inside.
She’d watched him for thirty minutes now as he ate his frittata and read Watership Down. At points he’d lower the book, glance around the restaurant, and chuckle. The last few bites of his frittata growing cold. The fork abandoned beside the plate.
It was lunchtime and the restaurant was full of office workers on their breaks talking about company business and company gossip, but Kelly didn’t see any of them. She only saw him. She heard him from the moment he walked in the door–the sound his bruised, brown cowboy boots made clipping the tile floor as he walked in, the sound of his hoarse voice as he placed his order. He unbutton his gray tweed jacket. His double chin hung over his beige turtle neck. His skin was reddened from the heat and the sun.
Waiters crossed her path with trays stacked high with plates of sandwiches and salads. As she approached him, she could smell burnt leaves a much more comfortable smell than she expected. She stood next to his table and breathed in deeply.
He let out a loud guffaw and looked up from his book to see a short, round, brown woman standing beside him. Her straightened hair pulled into a neat bun at the nap of her neck.
“I know you have horns under that hat,” Kelly said. There was probably a better way to break the ice, but she was never much for ice breaking.
“Really?” he took off his gray tweed hat to reveal close cropped brown hair thinning at the crown. “What else do you know?” He winked at her.
Kelly couldn’t let this fluster her. She knew. Even though he wasn’t exactly what she’d expected, she knew. She pulled the chair out across from him and sat down. She couldn’t walk away now. It had already started. “I know who you are.”
He laughed again. “I’m glad somebody does. It’s hard to get any recognition in this town.”
Kelly expected black fangs, but his teeth were slightly yellowed and crowded on the bottom. “I have something for you.” She reached into the back pocket of her jeans and pulled out a piece of tinfoil three inches square. The foil had been crinkled and smoothed and crinkled and smoothed again. Pin sized holes in its center let the light through. One of the corners was missing and another folded over. She held it out to him.
“What’s that?” He put his book down, squinted and leaned in like he couldn’t quite see it.
“I thought you’d know.”
“It looks like a piece of aluminum foil.”
“That’s what it is.”
“Why would I want that?”
Kelly’s hand remained suspended in the middle of the table. “I don’t know. I thought you’d know…My grandmother gave this to me when I was eight. She told me if I ever saw you to give it to you. She told me you’d know what to do with it.”
“She must’ve been insane. And you obviously believed her.”
“She was convincing.”
“I’m sure she was. Crazy people usually are.” He leaned back in his chair and placed his hat back on his head. “Look if you want to offer me something useful like your soul, I’m ready. But I can get tinfoil at Walmart…”
Kelly pulled back her hand and placed it and the foil it contained in her lap. “You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“I can’t believe that you were so sure you’d meet me one day that held on to that for…how long?
“25 years,” she sighed.
He laughed and smacked the edge of the table with his hand. “25 years.”
Kelly stood up. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bother you.”
“No bother at all. I’m always up for a good laugh.”
She turned her back and walked away with his sharp laughter cutting into her. The restaurant suddenly came alive to her. Everyone was talking and laughing—talking and laughing at her. She dropped the foil on the floor . It wasn’t the same piece her grandmother had given her anyway. She’d lost that long ago, but that didn’t matter anymore.
The chime rang as she pulled the door open and stepped out into the summer heat.
