Coffee Shop

Emily pulled four things from her purse: a notepad, a personalized ball point pen that her mother gave her for Christmas the year after she graduated from college, a pack of Virginia Slims Menthol Lights 120s, and a book of matches.  She set her notepad and pen on the table, pulled out a cigarette, and lit it, exhaling the sweet nicotine with a flourish of neck and wrist.  She had started smoking to look styled, sophisticated, and now, wouldn’t you know it, smoking was out and she was addicted.  Didn’t matter to her much; she felt it made her look every bit the high end journalist that she would one day be.  This interviewing of animal rights activists and local business owners would one day be behind her and she would be on to bigger and better things: award winning actors, civil rights leaders, the President.  One day she would move up from the dinky “In Your Area” column and into the vast department of “In the World Today.”  Until then she would continue interviewing the Lindsay Ann, high school science fair winners of the world, arching her eyebrows conspiratorially as she asked the questions she wanted to know.  At least if she had to write these stories, she’d do so with a flourish.