The waitress pointed to a man sitting alone at the counter, his back to me.
He was hunched over, elbows on the table. Untucked brown flannel. Silver-streaked hair tied back in a ponytail. It occurred to me I was supposed to be meeting him at his home, and it didn’t look like he was going to be there.
“Hey, Pablo!” The waitress walked toward him. I wondered how fast I could run to the door, if I could do it before either of them noticed. I wasn’t ready. It wasn’t like we could take back the last three decades and start fresh. That distance would always be strong.
His panic seemed to mirror mine, eyes reading a kind of terror. The waitress goaded him up, but he was reluctant and stubborn. I stayed put and looked into my coffee. Maybe he would make the right choice and leave, and we wouldn’t have to do any of this. She prodded him forward until he was moving on his own. I hoped seeing was enough.
“Isobella?”
“I go by Ella now.”
He sat down, avoiding eye contact:
“So you’re here.”
“You too.”
“Must run in the blood, huh?”
I wanted to laugh. I coughed instead.
“So what happens now?” I said.
Acknowledgments
My family, Constance Ann Fitzgerald, Ladybox Books, Rios de la Luz, J David Osborne, Rose O’Keefe, Cameron Pierce, Kirsten Alene Pierce, Erica Danger, Chrissy Horchheimmer, John Skipp, Sean Leonard, Jessica Leonard, Robert Devereaux, Brian Keene, Deanna Uutela, Living Dead Magazine, Teresa Pollack, Lucas Mangum, Nathan Carson, Spike Marlowe, Kevin Shamel, Brooks Blackhawk, Sam McCanna, Nick Gucker, Suicide Girls, Gabino Iglesias, Erika Instead, Kevin Strange, the Riot Grrrls, Violet LeVoit, JS Breukelaar, and lastly, Michael Kazepis.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Tiffany Scandal is a writer, photographer, and Suicide Girl living in Portland, Oregon. Her words (fiction and non-fiction) have appeared in The Magazine of Bizarro Fiction, Living Dead Magazine, a handful of anthologies, and the limited edition Ladybox Box Set. Her photography and modeling have appeared both online and in print.
Her first novel, There’s No Happy Ending, was part of the 2013/2104 New Bizarro Author Series, and placed number seven in Brian Keene’s Top Ten Books of 2013 list. This is her second novel.
You can find her online at:
www.TiffanyScandalSucks.com