Re: Late-night intermission, at the bar: Sonya C & Jack P
The mossy miles, the barren breadth, deserted distance from here to New Jersey—and Sonya wasn't expecting vowels from another continent, served this side of a biscuit and tea. She had yet to fully inhabit the space of her new identity and she was too young to the world to keep her surprise from expressive blue eyes and pink lips that parted in brief wordlessness. It reminded her of someone. She laughed a little, sheepish, diverting her gaze to the glass that joined the wood top glazed black before her.
Chilled cocktail in soda lime pinned spinning lights into strands, working out from whiskey-amber and ice float. Sonya held her palm open to the play, watching it pass over her palm as the music played too loud for her liking and she was still much too cold.
"Now I know why it's so busy." She played with the stem of her cherry-playing-buoy in vermouth, somehow almost shy, while not at all. She popped red into her mouth, crushed its flesh between her teeth, and smiled around the bloody, grenadine pulp just for the thrill of it. "Are there many of these—" Her gaze flicked around, then back at the stranger next to her, older, handsome in a rough-edged way. "—places around here?"
She continued to shiver, still warming into the plush seat.