The Kings Of Cool

85

The waitress hands them menus.

“I know that girl,” Doc says, watching her walk away. He turns to John, sitting in the booth beside him. “We know that girl.”

John shrugs. They know lots of girls, and he’s still a little blown away by Diane kissing him with her husband right there.

But if Stan is pissed, he’s not showing it.

Not showing it at all, because his hand is under the table, stroking his wife’s thigh, and she’s looking across the table straight at John, her lips curled into a smile that wants to become a laugh.

“I know that girl,” Doc repeats, then gives it up and asks Stan, “So what do you think?”

Stan strokes his beard.

Black and bushy.

“I don’t know,” he says, studying the menu. “I don’t know.”

“Don’t know what?” Diane asks, as if she hadn’t overheard the conversation in the van.

“Doc has a business proposition,” Stan says.

“You know,” Doc says. “Business.”

“Oh,” says Diane. “ Business. ”

“Should we be talking about this here?” Stan asks.

Diane is surprised that she feels contempt for him.

The waitress comes back for their orders.

She’s pretty, Diane thinks.

A cheerleader.

They all order omelets.

Diane sees Stan (sneakily) look at the girl’s tits.

“Do we know each other?” Doc asks the girl.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I don’t think so.”

You couldn’t describe the girl as bubbly, Diane thinks, but you wouldn’t call her cold, either.

She’s reserved.

Older than her age.

“I just think I know you from somewhere,” Doc says.

Kim thinks, maybe it’s because you used to sleep with my mother with me there, but she doesn’t say anything. If Doc doesn’t remember her, good. If no one remembers her, good.

“Jesus, will you let it go?” John mutters at Doc.

Kim remembers him, too.

The boy who lived in the cave and ignored her.

Stan watches her ass as she walks away, then says to Doc, “I don’t think we have the money to buy in.”

“That’s the beauty of it,” Doc says. “You don’t have to. You just go down to Mexico, bring some back with you, and keep a piece for yourself. Sell that piece and you’re in business.”

“I don’t know…”

Doc leans over the table and says to Stan, “You could sell right out of the store. I’m telling you, this is money. ”

“I don’t know,” Stan answers. “We’ll have to think about it.”

“Don’t think about it too long,” Doc says.

Cocaine doesn’t make you exactly patient.

Diane looks at John.