Tonight I was drunk and out for a cup of coffee, and not five minutes after had I settled down with my sketchbook, a little high- school girl rushed over to my table. "Hi, my name is Katie," she said and smiled. I looked up from my book and eyed the girl, a skinny blonde with hollow cheeks and red- rimmed green eyes. She leaned forward expectantly. "Hello, Katie." I looked back to my book. I had lots of work to do... "Well?" "Well, what?" "Well, aren't you going to tell me your name?" I held back a sigh and closed my book. It was obvious I had no hope of escaping quietly. "It's Kirsten," I said. She kept looking at me intently, and I didn't know what to do so I looked back. The girl was beginning to make me nervous, so I took a long, deliberate sip of my coffee and looked with longing at my sketchbook, which was sitting seductively in front of me on the table. Katie said nothing, so I thought maybe she had only wanted to introduce herself...but then I wouldn't have minded if she'd left me alone. I slowly reached for my book and started to open it again. "Kirsten?" Shut the book. "Yes?" "I have always wanted to be like you." My head snapped up, despite my best efforts. It's not often, after all, that a pretty teenage girl wants to "be like" a sad-looking drunken twenty-year-old person sitting alone at Webb's in the middle of the night. I stared at her. "I saw you coming in from the lot, and watched you walk in the door with your little book and go quietly to this table where we're sitting now...you don't mind if I sit?" I shook my head, and Katie sat. "Thank you. Now I've only been observing you for five, maybe seven minutes, but I can already tell...may I look at your sketchbook?" Nobody gets to look at my sketchbook. I nodded slowly and pushed the book across the table with one finger. Katie lit a cigarette. I did the same, and we both sat silently and smoked while she carefully studied each of my drawings, even the terrible contour-line bits I had to do for a class once. I finished my coffee and was trying to devise a polite way to leave when Katie, without looking up from my book, quickly waved her hand over her shoulder and said "Jim." Jim hurried over and refilled our mugs before I could stop him. I didn't want any more, but I couldn't just let it sit there. After a few more minutes, Katie nodded with what looked like satisfaction, loudly closed my book and settled back in her chair. She lit another cigarette and puffed on it for a bit. "They're quite good, you know." She tapped the book and a bit of ash fell onto the cover. I stared at the ash, wanting desperately to brush it off but somehow unable to move. "Thank you," I nearly whispered. I couldn't take my eyes from the piece of ash. "The ones of naked people are especially good. Accurate. You must have seen a lot of naked people over the years." Her eyes twinkled obnoxiously. "I...I suppose," I stammered. "I mean, in...in movies and stuff." Katie giggled. "In movies, yes." And what to say now? I didn't know why I'd said that about movies, as it was a big fat lie. The only sorts of movies I usually watch show the occasional asscheek, or maybe a breast here and there. I dearly hoped Katie was through discussing naked people. "So Kirsten, I really would love to be like you." Suddenly I wanted nothing more than to talk to Katie about naked people. But I didn't say anything. Jim refilled the mugs again. "You go to the university, then?" "No, not anymore." I bit my lip. "It was boring?" "Yes, you could say that." "Lovely." Katie grinned. "That is perfect." She blew a smoke ring. "Perfect," she said again. "If you say so..." Katie was looking down now, scribbling on a napkin. "Here," she said, handing me her phone number. "You really should call sometime. I have quite a few questions for you...but now I've got to go...school starts tomorrow." She winked and rushed off, leaving her cup of coffee steaming on the table. All I could do was sit wondering if she'd just been fucking with me, and marvelling at the fact that i had just been intimidated by a girl who looked like an Olsen twin. Care2 make the world greener! http://www.care2.com - Get your Free e-mail account that helps save Wildlife! +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+