Free The Smart One and the Pretty One by Claire LaZebnik

wasted on him: he was looking across the hallway, checking on his mother again. She let her arms drop to her sides. “Want to play something else?”
    “Let’s take a break.” He threw the cards on the table. “Your mother’s bag is almost through.”
    “Should I go over there?” Lauren started to rise, but he shook his head.
    “The nurses will take care of it. It’ll be a while yet—they’ll flush her out with some extra liquids first.”
    “Oh.” She fidgeted. “You want to grab a cup of coffee?”
    They went back to the snack area. Lauren pushed a button on the coffee machine that dispensed exactly one cup’s worth of coffee into a Styrofoam cup. She handed it to the guy, who stared at it absently. “My mother always drank a ton of coffee,” he said. “Cups and cups, all day long. Then, months ago, she stopped suddenly. She said it made her stomach feel funny. She thought it was because she was getting older—just couldn’t handle the acid anymore. But it was the cancer. It was already affecting her, only no one knew it. Not until the real pain started.”
    “So it’s stomach cancer?” Lauren punched at the coffee machine again and filled up a cup for herself.
    “No. Pancreatic. Stage four. Inoperable.”
    “I’m sorry,” Lauren said, turning with her cup of coffee. She didn’t know much about cancer, but the little she had read online had made it clear that stage four was bad. “All of this must be so overwhelming.”
    He looked around and past her. “You see milk anywhere?”
    “How’s this?” She fished a little plastic container of creamer out of a bowl full of them and tossed it to him.
    He made a face as he caught it. “You know what this stuff is made of? Corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oils. Not a drop of real milk in it.”
    “Maybe there’s some in the fridge.” Lauren put her coffee on the counter, squatted down, and peered into the refrigerator. “So are you some kind of health food nut? That’s twice you’ve complained about bad fats.”
    He dropped the creamer onto the counter. “Years ago, a friend of mine read an article about how bad partially hydrogenated oils are for you and wouldn’t stop talking about it—this was way before everyone else started worrying about them. She convinced me my blood would just stop flowing if I ate any. So I try to avoid them. But it’s not like I eat tofu and broccoli every day. I enjoy my hamburger and fries as much as the next guy.”
    “So long as they’re not cooked in trans fats.”
    “Exactly. Or so long as I don’t know that they are. When it comes to french fries, I observe a strict ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy. Especially if they’re hot and salty.”
    Lauren stood up with a small carton of milk and knocked the fridge door shut with her knee. “I eat everything.”
    “Everything?”
    She handed him the milk. “Except flan. I have a deep-seated fear of flan.”
    “It’s scary stuff,” he said. “I don’t blame you.” He opened the milk, sniffed it carefully, then poured a little into his coffee before offering the carton to Lauren.
    She shook her head. “I like coffee creamer. Think I’ll die young?”
    He gestured around him. “Nice joke to make
here
.”
    “Oh, come on,” she said. “Give me a break. I didn’t mean—”
    He put his hand up. “I was kidding. Make any joke you want. If you can’t laugh at this fucking shitty situation . . .” He didn’t bother to finish. Instead he said, “You know, the more time we spend together, the more awkward it’s going to be when I admit I have no idea what your name is.”
    “I don’t know yours either,” she said. “But I heard your mother say it. Let me see if I can remember.” She sipped her coffee, frowning in thought. “Is it David?”
    “Daniel.”
    “Hey, I was pretty close. Want to guess mine?”
    “I’m at a slight disadvantage,” he said. “Never having heard it at all.”
    “So? You could still