Free Black Painted Fingernails by Steven Herrick

‘Are we still talking truthfully?’
    ‘Yes, James. If you want.’
    ‘I can’t leave you on the side of the highway, not in this storm.’
    ‘I’ve been in worse places.’
    ‘Let – let me get a room. And tomorrow, I’ll drop you at the turn-off. There’s always a spare bed, Soph.’
    I didn’t mean to call her that. It slipped out.
    She says, ‘Thanks’ in a quiet voice and I know that like me, she’s thinking of the sound of ‘Soph,’ and what it means, me calling her that.
    Like catching a fish together on a blue-sky Sunday morning.
    Like eating a peach picked fresh from an orchard.
    Like sharing blackberries that stain like bruises.
    Beside the road, a foal gallops across a paddock. The mare trots alongside, herding it towards the safety of the trees. The foal flings its head back as if it wants to face the storm front on, confident it can outrun it, sure it can outrun anything. The mare canters under the trees and neighs. The foal wheels back and runs to its mother. They nudge each other and wait.
    A car horn blasts from behind. A ute pulls out and speeds past, the driver gesturing rudely. I was so involved with the horses, I hadn’t noticed myself slowing down. We watch the ute pull away, the man’s fist threatening us out the window.
    ‘I’ll buy you dinner, for the bed,’ Sophie says. ‘And I won’t tell the waitress we’re lovers, if you don’t tell her I’m your sister.’
    ‘You mean we’re extending the truth . . . what do we call it?’
    ‘The truth factory?’
    ‘Okay, we’re moving the truth factory from the car into the pub?’
    ‘It surrounds us, James, all the time, like a—’
    ‘Don’t tell me – like a spell!’
    ‘You’re learning.’
    The ute is waiting at the first traffic lights in two hundred kilometres. I keep my distance, careful not to smile in case the driver sees me in the rear mirror and gets out, wanting to make something of it. He has a shaved head and his rear window is plastered with stickers and an Australian flag. The light turns green and he wastes rubber, loudly.
    There’s a Welcome Motel on the opposite corner. Four Telstra vans are parked out front, the technicians sitting on fold-up chairs in a circle under the awning, a carton of beer between them.
    I drive past and turn into the main street. At the first roundabout there’s a statue of a soldier, head bowed, eyes staring down the gunbarrel-straight road out of town with the names of the fallen engraved below his feet. Wreaths of plastic flowers circle the statue. I angle-park near the biggest pub, which has a blackboard menu beside the entrance advertising Roast of the Day for ten dollars. We jump out and run through the rain to the footpath.
    Inside, there’s a smell of stale beer and worn carpet. My eyes blink, adjusting to the gloom. A wooden bar runs along one wall, opposite two pool tables surrounded by men in singlets, beers in hand. Spinning fans hang from the pressed-metal ceiling, threatening to take the tip off any pool cue held too high.
    The men watch as Sophie shakes the raindrops from her hair.
    Someone near the door mutters about the night looking promising and a few blokes laugh. Their hungry eyes roam from her to me. One bloke with a five-day growth and trucker’s cap stands in my way, chalking his pool cue. I bow my head and squeeze between him and the bar. He nudges me with his shoulder. The barmaid scowls at me for no reason other than that Sophie is beautiful.
    We walk to a booth in the far corner, which has plastic orange upholstery and a sign above reading No smoking inside . Someone has scrawled the word bastards in biro on the sign, except they spelt it barsteds .
    Sophie slides into the booth. I stub my toe and bend uncomfortably. My head strikes the lamp over the table and it swings wildly, shadow-boxing, as I flop heavily onto the seat. Sophie reaches for my forehead.
    ‘No!’ I react.
    My fingers feel for blood, find only a lump itching to grow. Reaching