Thanks Angie Cothran and Cassie Mae for hosting the blogfest. I learned a lot about my characters this way.
I have to lose the following scene from my novel but I'm having separation anxiety. I'd feel better if I could, at least, let it live here.
I am there for the jukebox. For the slap of song against the next one. I press arrows. Watch titles flicker and smack. A crumpled dollar bill spits back out at me and I study George Washington, turn my head, face the way he is supposed to face, so that the world is sideways.
"It won't take the dollar."
The dim light barely cuts across the dark. Everything is half of what it should be. Everybody in profile. One side of an unkempt beard. One shoe scraping the floor.
Anna hovers over whiskey she knows how to drink, jet black hair draped over the shine of bar. "Don't worry about it."
"No. I'll get it." But the dollar bill shoots out, floats to the sticky floor.
She swivels on the bar stool, reveals her tall lace-up boots that creep like vines up her legs, then twist up into tight black pants and a matching turtle-neck. Her blue eyes sparkle against all the black and she is up and down and reaching over until the dollar bill vanishes and her hand brushes against the jukebox as if it is only slipping down a banister and, just like that, we are full of song.
She pushes the cool glass of whiskey into the palm of my hand. As I open my mouth to protest, she is ahead of me. As always. "Live a little Claire."
