Gabby and Morgan meet for lunch every Friday afternoon. Today they’re at Golden Brown, a new homestyle restaurant in town.

“I love these menus,” Gabby says. “Pictures.”

“I don’t love our waitress,” Morgan says. “She is not fat enough.”

“She’s got foster mother written all over her.”

“Maybe she’ll adopt us. After lunch.”

They examine their menus in silence. Twice Gabby tells the waitress they need more time. The waitress refills their icewaters.

“What did you have for breakfast, Morg?”

“I did not eat breakfast. This morning.”

“Me neither.”

They high five. Fist bump. Pistol point at one another.

“My mother.”

“Nurse Jackie.”

“Made another prediction.”

“Her last one. About flip-flops. Was dead on.”

“She sees it. Every day. In the emergency room.”

“I only wear mine at the pool now. And at the gym. In the steamroom.”

“Good girl, Morg.”

“What’s her new prediction?”

“Boys wearing their pants half-way down their hips.”

“I don’t want to hear this prediction.”

“No. It’s not gruesome. She just said.”

“What?”

“She just said that these boys. With their pants hanging low. On their hips. Are all walking bowlegged. To keep their pants from falling down. Damaging their gaits.”

“Shit. She’s so right.”

“These boys. They’re all going to need their hips replaced. When they’re forty.”

They return their attention to the menus. Gabby has made it to the back cover. Morgan is still on the back inside cover.

“Morg.”

“Yes.”

“You’ve got a CSI name.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Like. Get this dead body. To the morgue.”

“Not funny.”

Gabby waves to the waitress.

“Your favorite waitress is gaining weight.”

“She better. If she wants to keep her job.”

They place their orders. Separate appetizers. Soups. Salads. Entrees and desserts. All to be served at the same time.

Their waitress doesn’t understand. “Everything at once?”

“Yes,” says Gabby.

“Is that going to be a problem?” Morgan asks.

“Cook it all in the same pot” Gabby says.

Morgan says, “She joking.”

+

When the food arrives—delivered by three servers—Gabby examines the soup. “It’s greasy on top.”

“Like at Morsel.”

“I miss that place.”

“The fattest waitresses. Ever.”

“But this soup.”

“I’m looking at your soup still. I haven’t even looked at mine.”
“This soup smells like cat.”

“I smell cat, too.”

“I wouldn’t wash my balls in that soup.”

“You sending yours back?”

“Of course.”

“What about your salad?”

“I’m not looking at my salad until this soup is off the table.”

Gabby tells the waitress that the soup is abysmal. She takes both soup bowls from the table.

“Can you bring the menus back, please,” Gabby says.

The waitress says, “Certainly.”

Morgan and Gabby watch the waitress walk away from their table and don’t speak until she returns with two menus.

“I feel this would be so much easier. If that waitress weighed more.”

“Maybe we can sneak a look at the kitchen help.”

“That actually would make me hungry.”

Gabby takes a picture of her salad with her phone.

“This salad does not look like the salad on the menu.”

“The salad on the menu. Is a prom picture.”

“I want to cry. All this food.”

Gabby says, “Craig calls the clump of hair at the small of his back his other goatee.”

“Is that the best you can do?”

“His new tattoo. On his neck. Is infected.”

“I should light up. See if they’d throw us out.”

“Give the waitress that expired coupon.”

“Do you still have the Nurse Jackie pictures? On your phone?”

“The flip-flop girl pictures.”

Morgan says, “Yes.”

Gabby brings up the photos on her phone. She passes the phone across the table to Morgan.

“ I just lost my appetite.”

“You’re welcome.”