Story Fragment the 3rd - June 2022 by M. K. Dreysen - Soup and a Sandwich?
Marconia addressed herself to her wineglass as she did her lunch partner, and the Earthview through the magnificent glass wall behind her.
With a little reverance, a little sigh that the glass had to be so modified for the light gravity, and a little humor at the situation. "We've become Ladies Who Lunch."
Yevvie rolled her eyes. "Please tell me you're not going to do that to me." Yevvie pushed aside her bangs, posed theatrically. "I've far too little gray, and no patience at all for the rigors required to sit a beautician's chair..."
Marconia dipped a finger into her water glass and flicked the results across the table. "Drama much?"
The pair watched the drops linger on their long trajectory to the floor. Yevvie would have preferred a table closest to the glass, but while Marconia could appreciate the Earthview, the vast drop to the bottom of the Lunar crater far below the restaurant's floor did her digestion no favors at all.
The waiter glided over with their plates, omelette with salad, tomato soup with half of a pastrami sandwich. Yevvie inhaled the soup's fragrance, eyes closed and her face a tapestry of relaxed enjoyment.
Marconia's own face relaxed her habitual sarcasm at the sight. The week's done then, she thought to herself. "You made the right choice, then?" she said.
"Wonderful," Yevvie replied, but only after the first sip.
There'd been some balancing, Yevvie had almost allowed Marconia to be the one to pick between the onion soup and the tomato.
Dessert was a cup of coffee, a lemon cookie on the one hand and just the barest, thinnest slice of cheese cake on the other. And, and most of all, lingering conversation of nothing much at all.
Marconia won the struggle for this week's check. And then it was time to go, another week's troubles passed on to the crater and the dust surface and the blue marble beyond.
Marconia made it all the way to the subway tunnel before she asked herself... "Should I have told her?"
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Please keep it on the sane side. There are an awful lot of places on the internet for discussions of politics, money, sex, religion, etc. etc. et bloody cetera. In this time and place, let us talk about something else, and politely, please.