Losing Charity

Losing Charity - 20

I hear her quick footsteps in the hall. I know her walk. I know the clack-clack of her boots on the wooden floor. I know from the sound exactly which pair of boots she is wearing today out of the six pairs she owns. I turn the big lock.

"Why aren't you answering my texts?" she says, breezing past me with an air kiss as I pull the door open.

I close the door. She thrusts a coffee into my hands.

I recognize the burnt orange cup and bucking bronco logo of Durango Coffee. Mols is mad for Durango coffee. Cowboy coffee, she claims, is the best. It's what cowboys drink.

I'm pretty sure actual cowboy coffee in the Old West was total swill. They were not steaming up skinny extra hot half-caf two pump vanilla lattes out on the range – which I know, without asking, is what Molly just handed me.

"I like what you've done with the place," she says, raising her triple shot almond soy in mock salute.

She makes this joke every time she comes over.

That's how I know it's really Mols and not some Russian spy double disguised as her. Not that the Russians would learn anything remotely interesting by spying on me.

She takes in my blue with bunnies flannel PJ's – don't judge! – and scowls. "Jesus! Are you still in bed?"

Sullen, I take a satisfying sip from my vanilla and say, "No. Not anymore."

"I didn't know if you were dead or alive," says Molly. "I wasn't sure if you even came home last night or ... spent it elsewhere." She gives me a knowing, appraising look. I give her my baffled, still-not-awake-but-getting-there face in return. "Why aren't you answering my texts?" she demands.

"Sleeping?"

"All night?" She scoffs. "Who sleeps all night? And half the day."

I drink more latte and try to form words. I fail.

"Well?" says Molly.

"What time is it?" I ask.

"Almost noon. Stop avoiding the question. What happened?"

"What happened what?"

"Last night."

"I ... slept?"

"And Jesus wept. Spill it. You went dark on me, babes. You left me hanging. Unfulfilled."

"Left what hanging?"

"Your date."

"What date?"

"What date?" She rolls her eyes. "Barbat. Richie Rich. Peter. Peter the Rich. The rich Peter. That date. Something happened, or you wouldn't be like this. Now give."

"I have no idea what you..." – and then, mid-sentence,I remember – "Oh."

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Losing Charity © Dan McGirt 2019. All rights reserved.

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