The dirty glass door clanged open, and Lenny the manager shot an annoyed look over. “Don’t slam the damn thing,” he said. 

“Easy, Lenny,” the man said. “It’s just me.” He wore a tight shirt covered by a leather jacket. In one hand he held the stub of a finished cigarette, and in the other was the waist of a giggling woman. 

“It don’t matter if it’s you, Jiang,” Lenny said. His grumpy expression didn’t budge, but he went back to polishing the mugs. “Same goes for the lady.”

The man neatly flicked the stub into an ashtray and guided the woman into a nearby booth. His hand slid up to her shoulder as they sat down. “This here’s Iris. Saw her pretty doll face in SoHo last night, and thought I’d invite her to a quick bite today. Say hi, Iris.” 

Iris peeked at Lenny through long lashes and mascara and let out a giggle. Her shiny pink nails came up to her mouth to stifle her laughter. 

“She’s a singer, don’t you know,” Jiang said. He’d picked up a menu with his free hand and was idly scanning through. “Real good at it, too. You ever been to a Broadway show, Lenny?”

“Can’t say I have.” The manager lined up the mugs on the shelf behind him, his back turned to the couple. 

“She sings in ‘em. Can you believe it? Up on the big stage, her voice like an angel! She’s getting me into a show this weekend. Bet she could get you a ticket too.”

“I ain’t much for musicals.” Lenny tossed the dish rag to the counter and turned around. “You gonna order or not?”

Jiang ordered the pancake special, as he always did. Iris, giggling, ordered a parfait. Lenny walked to the kitchen door and yelled the order through, then came back to the counter. There weren’t any mugs left to clean, so he stared out the window at the garbage bags piled by the street. No one else was in the diner. 

Jiang looked around. “Where’s Christine?” he asked. Christine was a waitress who always took the morning shifts. 

“Beats me.”

Jiang squinted. “Aren’t you the manager?”

“I suppose.”

“But you don’t know where your employee is.”

Lenny shrugged. “She don’t show up.”

“Damn. She’s never not been here.” Jiang scratched at the slight stubble on his chin. “She was nice. Fun to talk to, and smart.”

Iris stopped giggling for a moment. Jiang looked quickly at her. “You’re fun to talk to as well, babe,” he said. “Christine’s just a friend. Hardworking college girl like that, she wouldn’t fall for a guy like me.”

Lenny looked as if he was about to say something, but didn’t. Instead he drummed his fingers against the counter. Jiang just kept talking.

“Maybe she left for another job. She’d always complain about money, worried about rent and textbooks and all. Being a waitress here can’t pay much.” He glanced back at the manager. “You paid her fair and square, right Lenny?”

“I paid her every dollar she earned,” Lenny said. Jiang frowned at that, then nodded. 

“You’re an honest guy, Lenny. I’m sure you did.”

The food came out, appearing through the small window from the kitchen to the counter. Lenny brought the tray over to the couple, then poured himself a coffee and took small sips, listening to Jiang flirt and Iris giggle. Eventually they finished, and Jiang tossed a twenty on the table and got up. Lenny cleared his throat.

“Is that ticket still available?”

Jiang blinked. “What ticket?”

“The ticket. For the show.” Lenny gestured at Iris. “Her Broadway thing.”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess.” Jiang looked a bit confused. “I thought you weren’t into them.”

“Not for me. For a friend.”

The pause turned into a silence. Jiang picked at his chin again and fidgeted with his jacket. He spoke slowly. “Yeah. Sure. I can do that.”

He whispered to Iris and the woman dipped into her bag and pulled out a strip of paper. She slid it across the counter with her pink nails and Lenny picked it up with his short worn ones, reading over the print. 

“How is she?” Jiang asked. “Your friend, I mean.”

Lenny didn’t respond right away. “There’s a lot on my friend’s mind,” he said. “Maybe this will cheer her up.”

Jiang nodded. He turned to leave. “Have a good one, Lenny,” he said. 

The glass door clanged against the wall as the two left. Lenny didn’t get mad this time. He just stood behind the counter, lost in thought. He goes to pick up the phone from the wall.

---

Start a new story in which two characters go on a date. Don’t decide in advance whether the date goes well or not. Just write the scene with an open mind and see what happens. [750 words]

I was reading Hemingway and the minimalism got stuck in my head. Fun to write, but hard to show intent. I feel like it’d be hard to write a full story like this (plus it’s been done to death anyways).

The “writing with an open mind” was also interesting, since I was basically making up the scene on the fly. The only idea I had at the start was “guy brings a new girl into an old diner” and the story took a pretty different direction from where I thought it would go. Very little romance, and a lot unspoken. Where is Christine?