"I thought you guys called it quits," I say, pointing to the guitar case he sets down beside him.

"Yeah, well," he mumbles through the stick between his lips. "I'm with a new group. We're called Toothpaste."

I watch him take a long, deep drag. Fyke is so thin that when he does it real slow, I can imagine the white cigarette smoke filling him up, swirling in the chest, spreading down the length of his bony arms to his calloused fingertips, reaching as far down as the dead toenail that's beginning to poke out of his red tennis shoe, so that for a second I see a soul fog-like inside him, right before he blows it onto my face.

"What?"

I look away. "I just realized that the number of bands you've played in now equals the number of courses you've flunked."

"Don't start, Anne."

"No, really. If you hate school so much, why don't you just graduate?"

"Graduate, fornicate."

"You're pathetic."

"Sure", he looks at me and flashes a smile, "but I'm not the one sitting here with mascara goop all over my face."

"Oh, shit." He chuckles as I fumble in my purse for a tissue.

"What's with the get-up anyway?" He asks for a few seconds later. I stop wiping my face.

"Why?" I ask back, feeling the fabric of my dress stand up around me.

"Nothing, I guess." He shrugs. "You just look like it's your — " His eyes widen. "Hey, it is your birthday!"

"Yeah," I mumble, crushing the tissue into a tight ball in my hand.

"Happy Birthday." He reaches out and gives my hair a tug. I slap his hand and he laughs. Fyke blows one, two, three rings into the air, then flings the cigarette butt away. He turns to me with a huge grin. "I bet you've been sitting here all dolled up like that, waiting for me to finally, finally get you laid."

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