You're not like those lazy girls with cigarettes, he said.

I imagined pouting red lips slick with gloss and innuendo staining a paper filter. Smoke would trickle from her nose.

She'll smoke and think and look for ways to be honest with herself back at home where too much booze sends her sagging toward bed, leaning on ugly wallpaper.

Earlier she had probably stretched a dollar in her hands and fed it to the wall. Music blared and she frowned, listening to the wrong song. That's not it, she said, as happy hour soaked in.

After closing time with the bar lights up I was not thinking of much other than a passing comment about lazy girls. He talked while I mopped and noticed shadows under his eyes. No illusions last under these bright lights that find grit in the corners.