Shorty’s was Joanna’s favorite-favorite. She’d go with her dad on Tuesdays after gymnastics and eat dinosaur chicken fingers on the puffy red booth seats. Then she’d get an ice cream sundae. Marguerite was always the waitress and she’d make sure it had two cherries on top instead of one.
Joanna sipped her milk and swung her feet while her dad ordered tamales. Marguerite was just asking if he wanted sour cream and guac when her Dad’s phone vibrated on the counter, making Joanna jump. He looked at the screen and tsked. “No guac or sour cream. But, uh, could you do me a favor Marguerite? I have to step out and make a phone call; can you keep an eye on my daughter? I’ll be right outside; it will only be for a couple of minutes.”
Marguerite scanned the almost-empty restaurant and shrugged. “Yeah, it’s no problem.”
Joanna’s dad got up and squatted beside her side of the booth. “See that window Joey?” He pointed to the window on Joanna’s left, facing the parking lot. “I have to go outside and make a phone call, but you’ll be able to see me outside through that window. Okay?” Joanna nodded but frowned, feeling nervous and a tad resentful. Then her dad thought of something.
“Wait a minute - what about Ariel and Belle?” He pulled a pair of plastic figurines from his pocket. “You gave them to me before gymnastics because you didn’t think they’d be safe in your cubby, remember? It’s a good thing I had them! Otherwise they’d be in the car with your gym bag and wouldn’t be able to share your chicken fingers with you.”
Joanna took Ariel and Belle from her Dad. “Not chicken fingers - dino bites,” she corrected him.
Her Dad beamed. “Will you wave to me when you see me outside?”
“mmmmm…okay.”
He kissed her on the forehead and stepped outside. Joanna slid to the left side of the booth, beside the window. When she saw her dad she grinned and waved. He waved back. The finger paint orange and yellows of the setting sun turned the trees into silhouettes of skeleton hands. As an afterthought Joanna put Ariel and Belle against the cool window and bounced them up and down because they were too plastic to wave, but her Dad was looking too serious to notice, his phone against his ear.
The jukebox started playing “Johnny Strikes up the Band”. Ariel started dancing on her green mermaid tail and Belle twirled to the music in her yellow gown.
“You know, I don’t really like that song.”
Joanna felt a thud as someone sat in the booth behind her.
“What’s not to like?”
“It sounds so cheesy.”
“Well I like it.”
Marguerite took their order before anyone could reply.
“So. You said you wanted to talk.”
An intake of breath. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
“Okay. So…”
“You left your gmail browser open on our computer.”
“Jesus…”
“You were the one who left it open. It’s not like I checked the browser history or anything.”
“Yeah, but it’s my email. My private stuff.”
“If it was so private then why did you leave it open like that? Look - if I ever start a secret diary and leave it open on the kitchen counter you have every right to pick it right up and read to your heart’s content, alright? You can say ‘I told you so’ forever, even when we’re both in the nursing home with Alzheimer’s having nasty geriatric sex.”
Joanna was drawing a Shorty’s booth with a waxy blue crayon on the backside of the paper placemat while Ariel and Belle watched.
“Okay. So you read my email.”
“Yes, I did read the email which you left open for my perusal. And I found a string of correspondences with a woman named Claire.”
“There was a sigh from the far end of the booth.
“What do you want to know?”
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s not. It’s just -
“We met a year and a half ago. Before you. She was a Starbucks barista on a six month work visa from England. She was always there when I got a cappuccino on my lunch break.”
“…and?”
“She went back to England right before you came along.”
Joanna had drawn a plate of tamales on one side of her blue crayon booth and dino bites on the other. She sat Belle in front of the tamales and Ariel in front of dino bites. She looked out the window. It was getting dark outside. The lips on the silhouette of her father were moving quickly and deliberately as he gesticulated with his free hand.
“But you’re still talking to her now, a year later?”
“You would know.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Ok. What did you mean?”
“Did you sleep with her?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“And you’re still talking to her now.”
“Yes. By email. From England.”
Ariel and Belle started to talk over dinner.
“You’re acting like it’s just a fling but if you’re still talking a year later it’s…it’s a bit more than a fling,” said Ariel.
Belle gave a wry chuckle. “Yeah. We’re pen pals.”
“Sex isn’t the only way to be intimate with another person,” Ariel retorted, bouncing on her waxy blue booth seat.
Marguerite came by with a tray holding the dino bites, tamales, and an order of nachos with all the fixins. She placed the dino bites before Joanne (“Careful, they’re hot”) and the tamales before Joanne’s dad’s seat. The waitress looked at the window and frowned. “Your dad will be back soon, okay sweetie?” She picked up the tray and delivered the nachos to the booth behind Joanna.
Joanna pushed her plate to the side and added a plate of nachos to Belle and Ariel’s table.
“When I was in high school, my first boyfriend and I had this notebook. We’d pass it back and forth, writing letters to each other when we were supposed to be taking notes. It was almost never related to sex, and if it was, it was never about what we wanted to do with each other. Because it was more intimate than that, you see? It was like we were sharing the same brain, the same thoughts.”
“So you think that sharing letters is worse than cheating?”
“I - I dunno. It bothers me, that’s all.”
“I can assure you that our emails aren’t as intimate as the notebook you kept with your high school boyfriend. But I don’t know if you’ll believe me.”
Tom Waits started singing “Midnight Lullaby” on the jukebox. Ariel was lying in her booth on the placemat while Belle was far away, twirling to the music.
“You think too much, you know that? You’re too imaginative. I love you for it, but I wish I could make you stop. Because maybe you’ll be happy then.”
The door opened, and Joanna’s father entered with a gust of cool night air. “Sorry I took so long,” he said, sliding into the booth. “Have your chicken fingers cooled yet?”
“Dino bites,” Joanna corrected, plucking a stegosaurus from her plate. She blew on the tail before taking a tentative nibble.
Her father spotted the placemat drawing. “Looks like you have dinner set up for Ariel and Belle too. But shouldn’t Ariel be sitting up like a big girl?”
Joanna shook her head. “She’s too imaginative. But Belle just wants to dance to the music.”
Joanna’s father shrugged and took a bite of his tamale.
![One of the one world’s most elusive cats has been photographed by a night time camera trap, after a year-long search for the animal.
The ghostly image of the Saharan cheetah has excited conservationists, as perhaps fewer than 10 of the cats survive in the deserts of Termit, Niger, where the photograph was taken.
Almost nothing is known of the Saharan cheetah, except that it endures extremely high temperatures and appears to survive without a permanent source of water. [continued]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ldvxxw3tGi1qzou5ko1_400.jpg)
