Writing Exercise 4 - Kyle

She watched him lift the glass to his lips, watched him tip his whole body back into the metal chair as he took a drink. He set the glass down and wiped at his mustache. There was a bit of foam on the rim of his lips and he wiped at this with the back of his hand. She watched this and thought of those lips and what came out of them. How he’d curse and spit and bring a beer to them and put cigarettes to them and how his jaw worked at that, too. How he bit sometimes. She didn’t take her eyes off him. His mirrored sunglasses reflected back at her her warped image. Also the gray street and the glowing red sign that said Pabst Blue Ribbon. She was framed there in his eyes, in his sunglasses, against the backdrop of North 7^th Street and the Million Dollar Ace where beers were half price from three to eight. And since it was only four they had hours to go, hours yet to sit there and do nothing but look at each other. Except that Walt wasn’t looking at her, was instead looking out at the street as a livery cab slowed to the corner and rolled through. The young beautiful people filled the sidewalks and pulled Walt’s eyes away from her, these young beautiful people that were undeniably more beautiful than she was, with their scarves and formed hair and infinite cigarettes and pointed scuffed boots. All that separated them from them was the high black iron fence; the patio of the Million Dollar Ace was on the sidewalk and so there was really no separation at all. Just the fence and for her, those reflecting sunglasses.