There she always was in her giant coat, waiting for Anne on the corner. The corner with bags of trash, yellow cabs flying by. Tugging at her straightened black hair and smiling.
They entered the bar with kisses on the cheek.
"Summer! Anne!"
Bouncing along the coats that lined the wall, they settled down on the far end of the bar.
They stayed until the lights were lowered and the jukebox faint, the sound of tinkling glasses being arranged by the bar-back becoming the predominant murmur.
"Summer! Anne! Oh, Micky, you must meet these two girls."
Anne turned around to discover a face from her Saturday morning TV childhood. It was a sad remnant of the past in a black fedora. Aged pop star now fatherly. Gripping an Old Fashioned.
Ah, but not fatherly? He bent down and fixed the buckle on Anne's shoe and his fingers lingered on her ankle.
He asked Anne to dance. They swayed in the glow of the jukebox on that tiled floor where Anne had danced many times before.
She was unmoved.
Summer remained perched in amusement. Her back always unfathomably straight. Unfathomably straight in light of her cares. The weight that stood behind her eyes and the sadness that reached into the corners of her mouth disguised in her posture.
Then Summer and Anne pulled back on their giant coats and escaped into the winter night.
5am and only Micky remained, hunched over the bar. Sadly gripping an Old Fashioned.
