'no' should be mailed priority

"No, you can't drink that in here..do you still want it?"
"Uuumm, yyeeeeahh."
"Oohhkaay," he index fingers the numbered keys like Hemingway without a college education, "That'll be six seventy two," he double earring smiles and melts my chilled childhood chocolate heart.
"Thank you," I say and return to my red-tabled seat.
Can't drink the 22oz local beer? Why the fuck did I buy it? Wait...I can go out to my car and pour it into the travel coffee mug. Wait...am I an alcoholic? Wait...who the fuck is speaking here?

---

"What need will be met if you speak with her?"
"Well, first we have to take care of 'business'...with the car, and then with, you know..." I look at her cut shoulders and biceps and can't imagine her daughter, who probably rebels against appearance or strength, and then I think of a belle and sebastian song:

I always cry at endings...
oh, that wasn't what I meant at all...
my lovers/they never know unless I write.

"Do you miss her?"
"My mom?"
"Yes," she responds without the 'who-the-fuck-else would I be referring to?' attitude.
"No--yes! no..yes, um, well yes, in a way, I mean," my fortitude fades faster than an obscure reference in a oscar wilde poem.
She nods in that "oh, I know you do," way and I look up at the clock for the first time in an hour and a half and say, "oh, I just realized it is one thirty," kind of way and she charges me for the hour minus the half, as if she didn't know we'd gone over, as if she didn't recognize my habitually half-hearted, half-ass attempt to be exempt from the undeniable unifying glimpse of poetry in that half of humanity I'd like to forget.

---

"So what is it that you like to write, Ashley?"
"Poetry....mostly," I prod, "but recently I've been experimenting with different forms...creating my own genre, I mean, not that it matters," I add, just like another MFA clod.
"Ah hah," he responds, in his Vermontly accented way, "Whaell..." he arm-crosses his search of the walls in the living room.
"What? Are you wondering why I stopped writing?"
"No, I just noticed that there are no time pieces in this room," he looks at me, then over at Tiff.
She takes a telltale breath of response--
"--I took them down," I interrupt and take the blame for something that needs no blame.
"Ah hah," he smiles, "it doesn't matter to me..I'm just wondering if you can tell me what time it is."
"Ashley is good at this," she aims her look at me.
"I'd say it's at least ten," I guess.
"It's ten-fifteen," she says and kisses me on the head.
"I beat you by three minutes....not that it matters," he folds his arms the other way.
"No," I stare at the nail hole in the wal, "no, it doesn't."

---

"Oh, hi Melanie," Tiffany's voice decrescendos the telltale sign of my sister calling, all the way down the woodfloor hall into our bedroom, "How are you?" Tiff asks in her genuinely genuine way.
I continue to voyeuristically fold towels in the bedroom in my voyeuristic voyeur way
"What? Oh...oh god, I'm sorry, yes..yes, she's here, hold on...," she pauses the death-in-the-family pause, "I'll get her."
I stop folding. I stop breathing. I don't remember how to breathe. I don't remember what my father looks like with a beard.
"It's something about a childhood friend dying??" she shrugs her junebug shrug.
"Hello?" I question mark the receiver as if I could always flash a mississippi crooked letter smile.
"Ashley?" my sister repeats the shift/pinky key.
"Yeah." I change the punctuation.
"Abbey's husband died last night."
"What?"
"He was killed in a motorcycle accident."

---

"How are you today?"
"Fine," I say before giving the obligatory, "and you?' question mark.
"Great!" he exclaims with the force of a great lake flood and the dryness of the sonoran desert.
"How long will this take to get to Ithaca?"
"Priority?"
I decide not not state the obvious, though I'd love to say, "I'm using a fucking priority envelope, aren't I?"
"Let's punch in the zip code, shall we?"
Let's admit that we are queerer than a gay cowboy on brokeback mountain.
He taps the keys like a court reporter, "Looks like three business days, is that okay?"
"Yeah, I guess...how much?"
"That'll be four-seventy-five with tax."
I hand him cash.
"And will you need delivery confirmation today?"
"No."
"And what about any stamps?"
"Did I say I wanted any fucking stamps, for fuck's sake?" I want to ask, but say, "No," instead.
"Ok then, looks like you are all set to go."
"Thanks."
"Have a good night."
"Oh, I will," I say shouldering my bag, relieved that my Ithaca College summer course syllabus is in the mail, postmarked two minutes before the Speedway and Swan post office closes, two minutes before the pathetic spade postmarks the fucking span of my life.

---

"You don't know who you are!!!" her voice deltas the Chesapeake Bay up the Appalachian Trail, and I don't know which voice to believe, "I heard the mix, and I don't think you know who you are, so how can you have a healthy relationship? I'm sorry, did I say too much or offend you?"
"No, you didn't. Did I ever tell you that I was once in love with her?"
"No, but she did, but I never knew how much you were in love with her."
"Oh god! I was so fucking in love with her, but I see now that I wouldn't want to fuck up the close friendship we've established."
"So you aren't still in love with her?"
"No."
"What about that girl?"
"What about her?"
"Is she--"
"Oh, of course."
"So...are you--"
"No."

---

"Are you teaching here in the fall?"
"No."
"No?"
"No."
"Why not."
"I need a break from teaching and I want to focus on my writing...I'm also moving to Vermont, so I couldn't physically teach at IC next semester, sorry."
"Don't be sorry; it's just that we really loved your class, honestly. Even when you thought we were bored because we were falling asleep, it wasn't you but that we were so exhausted."
"I can believe that."
"So what do you write?"
"Poetry....mostly."

---

"Are you closing?"
"Yeah, in about..two, three minutes."
"Sorry."
"Don't worry, we have cleaning to do so you can stay as long as you like."
I shut down my mac so that I don't have to linger in the service industry secret after-hour space, "thanks a lot," I say zipping my computer bag, "sorry if I kept you from going home."
"No worries," he says without looking up from his mop as I walk to my car and answer the phone.
"Hey!"
"hey."
"I got your email."
"You did?"
"Yeah, I love you Ashley."
"I know."
She hums like a refrigerator in june.