Re: Outside: Clementine & Rudy
Clementine, she was friendly as bees. He peered, and she peered back, and she smiled summers. Her smile was something cultivated, and it hid things she knew the world was a whole lot happier not seeing. She'd learned that real small, that no one really wanted to see the ugliness going on 'neath their noses, and now she just smiled pretty and watched as folks believed she wasn't a thing but smiles and bitter bite. She didn't expect no different of this man moving slow beside her, cigarette lighting their way like some holiday beacon burning down ash to lips.
"It don't matter if you mind, but I reckon I wouldn't mind hearing that you don't." Her momma, she'd taught Clementine to twist men 'round her pinky, and Clementine had marveled at how well her momma did the same damn thing. Men came weekly, and just to smile down at her momma on a chaise, pretty bit of leg showing and a smile made just for them. Clementine, she never managed that smile real genuine, and there was always something there that said no one was getting at the girl behind those real pearly teeth.
She pretended she didn't notice that glower of his, not even some. "You want to buy little ol' me a drink? Now, what kind of person would I be if I said no?" She looped her arm in his, and she expected him to stiffen right up on her. But Clementine, she didn't care any if he did.