Black and White Eyes

You, Sir, are both a liar and a cad! I loath men like you!

I tried to look insulted. I actually was insulted! We were eyes inside eyes inside eyes.

“Jack, what are you looking at-- Oh! She’s divine!” Monica was suddenly standing behind my shoulder. “…Hmmm. Can you imagine wearing shoes like that?"

We both stared at a girl sitting gracefully on the hood of an old roadster parked on a graveled lane. Her eyes were no longer blue, but they stayed locked in me with black and white disappointment. .

Take a powder, buster, they said.

“We’ve got a long drive. Are you ready? Jack…?”

A pink suitcase sat on the freshly painted, wooden porch, waiting for me, as Monica waited, to be fetched to the car.

“Jack…?”

We drove down the graveled lane. Monica stared at the old house through the rear window.

“Don’t you just love Bed and Breakfastsasas?” she asked.

“’Take a powder, buster?’” I quoted.

“Jack?”

“Love ‘em,” I said.

“I think they are divine!” Monica said. She liked that word.

I nodded.

Monica told me how she loved the big poster beds, and the thick comforters. She loved the “smudgy” glass in the lead windows. She loved the whole aura of old houses; the simplicity of the furniture, the hardwood floors, though the throw-rug in our room—“You got to admit, Jack”-- had been a bit cheesy.


She also loved dogs. Especially the little fluffy ones! She wasn’t too sure if she liked children, but maybe someday. She was allergic to cats. She asked me if I liked cats. I told her I hated cats.

She took hold of my right arm and snuggled in. “You see how well we get along?”

We drove for two hours and twenty seven minutes and Monica had not stopped
talking for one fucking second of the way.

In her driveway, she asked if I was going to stay over.

I said, “Of course I am. You kidding?”

“Do you like me, Jack?”

“Baby,” I said, “you’re the cat’s meow!”


-341 words-