Re: [Jukebox - Sparrow & Open]
He was standing at the other jukebox, dropping a quarter into the machine and selecting the song that would play next, after the girl in the white dress. He was cleaned up, but there were still hints of greasepaint along the edge of his collar. He had a brandy balanced on the edge of the display, the edge of the glass on the small metal ridge, and he was flipping, flipping, looking for something.
Considering he bought the bloody jukeboxes himself, he ought to know what was on them. It didn't help him make a decision, though, especially not when he was standing at the jukebox of current things, things hip and now. He listened to a lot of music. He liked being engaged in what people who were still young wanted to listen to, despite not looking too far past thirty. But his heart was in the jukebox on the right, the one the girl was standing in front of and thinking about.
She only had one quarter in her hand, but she hadn't decided yet. Clean white with that full skirt. She belonged in a malt shop, not a place like this.
"Make it a good one," he said, looking at her choices as she flipped by them, offering a small, pleased smile when she looked up. There was no mistaking the trace of south London in his voice, short syllables and swallowed consonants. It didn't matter how many people you made yourself into. You didn't shake some things. Take the boy out of London...and anyway, he was buried there in the family plot, next to his mother and a brother, under a grave covered in lipstick marks and barrel vases of withering flowers.