Page 33 of Debugging Love

I stick my straw in my mouth to keep from smiling.

I think Danni realizes the gig is up. Her coworkers are ignoring her. She reluctantly spins ninety degrees to face me.The waitress brings her water. Danni sets her purse on the table before taking a drink.

“Do you have scoliosis?” I ask. “You sit crooked.”

“That’s rude.”

“Why? It’s an observable condition.”

Danni takes another sip of water and fiddles with the tiny silver heart pendant on her necklace. She was wearing it on our date. I noticed the way it rested on her...clavicles.

“For your information, my crookedness is your fault,” she says, anchoring three fingers around the chain.

“It’s my fault that you have scoliosis? When is your birthday?”

“Why does that matter?”

“When is it?”

“February 7th.”

“Year.”

She scowls before answering. “1999.”

“I was born two months after you. There’s no way I could’ve given you scoliosis.”

“Do you listen to yourself when you talk?” She squeezes her lemon into her water, drops the wedge in, and begins stabbing it with the end of her straw. Outside the window, a happy couple walks by. Their open smiles tell me they’re laughing, but I can’t hear it over the layers of noise.

“You didn’t answer my question,” I say.

“I don’t remember your question.” She rests an arm on the table and frowns at her water.

“Why are you always so cranky?”

“Why do you think?”

“Chronic back pain?”

“I’m sitting crooked because when I took your trash to the dumpster for you, your trash bag split open, and all your banana peels fell out, and I slipped on one and caught the edge of a step with my right butt cheek.”

I stifle a laugh by taking a long swig of Sprite.

“It’s not funny,” she retorts. “My butt looks like Uranus!”

My gut spasms. A powerful laugh bursts up my esophagus and ejects the Sprite from my mouth in a spray of droplets. They hit Danni’s face and her...clavicles.

She looks like she just smelled something putrid. It’s not my ego. That’s way over here on my side of the table.

She grabs the small square napkin underneath her glass. It’s wet from condensation, but she still wipes her face with it. “I’m glad you think it’s so funny,” she says after she’s all cleaned up. “I’m tempted to ask you for worker’s comp.”

“I’m not your employer, and I never asked you to take out my trash.”

“Putting your trash in a proper receptacle is basic sanitation. Apparently you grew up in a pigsty or a sewer pipe.”

Again, words are not made of matter, but they can sure feel like it. The punch sets me off kilter for a moment. Anger wells in my gut. It helps me regain my focus.

I lean forward with my elbows on the table. “Excuse me?”

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