Free Last Train to Babylon by Charlee Fam

would give me the control I need right now. I’ve never been a phone person anyway, and I don’t get why calls haven’t become obsolete.
    A thick-waisted waitress comes to take my order, and I realize I recognize her, but it’s too late; I’ve been spotted. “Oh hey,” she says. I force a smile. “How’s it going?”
    â€œMelanie, hey,” I say. Her hair is pinned up in a half-up, half-down bun, and her cheeks are plump and red.
    â€œHow are you?” she asks again, and I guess now I have to answer.
    â€œI’m okay,” I say.
    â€œI heard you’re living in the city. That’s so exciting.” She speaks in this slow dreamy tone that sort of makes me feel hollow.
    72
    â€œIt’s not that great,” I say. I pretend to read the menu, even though I already know what I’m getting, and I can feel her standing over me, too close, her hot bologna breath filling the space between us.
    â€œYou meeting the girls?” she asks, craning her neck toward the entrance, as if my high school posse is about to parade through the front door.
    â€œWhat girls?”
    â€œYou know.” She smiles. It’s a nervous smile, and it bothers me for some reason. “The girls.” She shimmies her shoulders and does a sort of dance. I know she means Rachel, Ally, and company, but I just shrug and go back to staring at the menu. I don’t bother saying that I haven’t seen “the girls” in years, or that Rachel is dead, just in case you’ve been living under a rock, and despite your delusions, I don’t actually have a gang of female companions who accompany me on late diner romps. I’m probably just as lonely as she is.
    â€œNo,” I say. “Just me.” She seems almost disappointed, and I suddenly remember the last time I’d been at a diner. It was with Rachel. And it was the last time I saw her.
    â€œCan I get a glass of red?” I say. “Whatever’s cheapest.”
    â€œSure,” she says. “Can I just see your ID?” I look up at her, and realize it’s the first time I’ve made eye contact with anyone tonight. She’s sweaty and pink and swallows with her mouth open as she waits for me to comply.
    â€œAre you serious?” I say. “You know how old I am.” She tilts her head, and I can’t tell whether she’s embarrassed or reveling in the sudden power shift.
    73
    â€œRestaurant policy,” she says. I make a big show fumbling around for my ID. And as I hold it out for her, tilting my head and mimicking the same overenthusiastic grin from my driver’s license photo, she finally drops the R-bomb. “Sucks about Rachel,” she says, her voice going an octave lower. “She was an awesome girl.”
    An awesome girl.
    I drop the license on the table. “Didn’t she used to call you ‘Melons’?” I say. It was fourth grade, and Rachel unsnapped Melanie’s bra in front of the entire girls’ locker room. She continued to call her “Melons” well into middle school.
    â€œThat was a long time ago,” she says, swallowing again. She picks up the license and examines it for a bizarre amount of time, her bracelets clanking together around her thick wrist. She hands it back to me, swallows, smiles, and says, “So I guess I’ll see you at the after-party?”
    I start clicking the buttons on my phone, pretending to text, even though I realize I have nobody to talk to. “I don’t think so.”
    When she brings me my wine—which is served in a plastic glass—she slams it down on the table, and thrusts her shoulder away from me. I eye her as she saunters over toward the hostess and whispers something in her ear.
    I finish the wine in two gulps, throw down a ten-dollar bill on the table, and get the hell out of there.
    T HE NEW GIRLFRIEND’S car is still in the driveway when I get back. I slip in