saltwater

[Deleted]

"I'm going out," Lucas calls up the stairs of his parents' palatial home, closing the door behind him before Don or Molly can interrogate him about his whereabouts. Getting into his car, he glances at himself in the rearview mirror. His dark curls were particularly out of control today and he pushes them out of his eyes, accepting that he probably should have gotten a haircut but it was too late now. Why did he feel so nervous, like this was an actual first date? Was this why actors adopted the method approach? He drives the familiar route to Judith's place, parking in the special spot round the block they had adopted to avoid prying eyes. Avoiding noticing the slight shake in his fingers, he fires off a quick text. Here. Want me to come collect you?

[Judith Haddock]

Nope. Be right out. Judith fingers race her lie across the screen. She's wearing a vintage bowling shirt with the name "Frankie" embroidered across the chest. She neatly tucks it into old denim pants and surveys herself in the mirror. A man had once told her she dressed the same as her older brothers, which made sense as she was often shopping the men's aisle rather than her own. Huey tries to catch her attention as she pulls the door open and she shouts behind her, "sorry! Gotta go." She's slow to walk to the car - achingly slow. And as she makes eye contact with Lucas behind the wheel, she actually slows her pace further to annoy him. "Oh, hello," she says as she opens the door. "I'm Judith, but my bowling pals call me Frankie."

[Deleted]

Lucas taps his foot anxiously as he waits, Tom Waits ironically playing from the tinny car speakers. His tracksuit pants are tucked into his white socks, well-worn white sneakers, a hooded sweatshirt and leather jacket completing what had been his signature look since his late teens. Judith comes into view and his heart skips a beat, the corners of his mouth twitching into a grin as he watches her slow her pace. Resisting the rising temptation to honk his horn, he very obviously looks her up and down as she gets into the car. "Hi Judy. I'm Lucas. You look better than your pictures, anyone ever told you that?"

[Judith Haddock]

She climbs into the seat beside her best friend and tries to hide the affection behind her eyes. She shakes her head and interupts him, "first of all, let's get this straight from the very beginning. No one calls me Judy. Judy is the name of a garland or someone that has a pension." She fastens her seatbelt and looks him up and down, "I hope you know that if that's an Adidas tracksuit you'll be doing the Slav squat."

[Deleted]

"No one?" he asks, raising a bushy eyebrow. He had always loved taunting her with that nickname, right up until they had stopped speaking and he'd had to retreat into calling her Judith, feeling unworthy of using her preferred Jude. He laughs at her comment, lifting the fabric of the pants to show the iconic white triple stripe running down his leg. "I can do that. So. First date. I've been thinking where we should go and I've come up with just the place." He pulls out and starts driving in the direction of the next town, intending to go to the diner where they used to while away their afternoons after school, Judith trying to do homework whilst Lucas tried to get her not to. "You're lucky I'm not a murderer, by the way. You really shouldn't get into a stranger's car, no matter how handsome that stranger is."

[Judith Haddock]

"No one living," she raises a daring eyebrow back at him and her lips curl into a smirk. Judith rolls down the window to feel the air lift stands of brown hair up from her head and she laughs when she counts three stripes of white running down his legs. "Well, I had my bets of the bowling alley, which is why I've dressed appropriately," she lifts the collar of her shirt and puffs it out. "I think I could take you if you had murder vibes."

[Deleted]

"We can bowl if you want, Frankie." He snorts as she insists that she could take him. They pull up at a red light and it gives him a chance to steal another look at her, her long, thick hair windswept, her lips somehow even fuller than he remembered them. His heart aches in his chest. "So tell me, are you a big dater? Prolific Tinder-er?" They're on the move again and it's not long before he's pulling into the parking lot of the all too familiar parking lot. He hasn't been back here since he was a teenager, but it looks just the same, even down to the flickering 'G' on the Georgia's Diner sign. "It doesn't look like much, but I promise, this place is special."

[Judith Haddock]

The car softly stops and her head turns to him. His pale skin reflects the red of the light and he really does look the part of a poet - the world is written on him. "Oh yeah," she smacks her lips sarcastically, "really into that Tinder D. You?" He pulls his car under a familiar flickering sign and she can't help the grin that shines on her face. She steps out of the car and holds her hand to her face, a loud whistle falls from her lips. "wow. What a dump."

[Deleted]

Even though Judith's words are heavy with sarcasm Lucas can't help but break character, reaching over to give her a playful shove. "Stop it, you're distracting me from driving," he says with a laugh, trying to pull himself together enough to revert back to character. "Don't judge a book by its cover, wait until you've tried their milkshakes." Before long they're sat in their old booth, the customer service as bad as it's always been, the smell of cooking hanging in the air between them. Having ordered a vanilla milkshake and a cheeseburger, he leans back, a louche arm stretching across the back of the chair as he eyes her across the table. "So. Tell me about yourself."

[Judith Haddock]

Judith laughs obnoxiously when he mentions she's distracting. Honestly, she hated internet dating and fully boycotted it when she was single. Though now, it seemed the only way to get a boyfriend... Unless of course, you'd been set up since you were in diapers. Georgia's Diner hasn't changed a bit. The waitress is still sour at them, she probably remembers the mess they'd always leave behind when they were kids. She slaps the sticky menus in front of them and before long Judith has a pile of fries and a strawberry milkshake in front of her. "Me? Well, I grew up here. Tried my shot in the big city, but turns out no one wants to buy art during a pandemic. So now I'm living with my parents and my dad's making me work at his stupid coffee shop." She takes a fry and dumps it in her milkshake. "Ever heard of that old dog Huey Haddock? Avoid at all cost... What'da about you?"

[Deleted]

He dips a fry into her milkshake, blurring boundaries that he probably wouldn't have done if she were an actual stranger to him. Nodding sagely as she speaks, he feigns a look of confusion when she mentions Huey. "Hmm, not sure I've heard of him. I'm sure he's a great guy though, I'll have to stop by the shop to say hello. I actually work in a coffee shop myself, though I prefer to think of myself as a poet by trade." He takes a big bite of his burger, relishing how utterly average but oh so familiar it is. "Outside of that I'm boring. Lived in Boston for a few years, moved home to help my parents during Covid. They're doctors, y'see."

[Judith Haddock]

"Hey. Easy with the double dipping, we haven't even kissed yet," she bats his hand away and generous dunks her own fry into his shake. "Is poetry a trade?" she ponders, her brows furrowing with judgement as she watches ketchup drip from his burger. "Ah, doctors. They sound like intelligent and established people," she seals this statement with a nod and breaks character to steal a bite of his burger. There was something about pickles, beef and cheddar cheese. "So what about me caught your eye?"

[Deleted]

She mentions kissing and his eyes automatically fall to her lips. They were by far his favorite feature of hers, not just because of their immense kissability but because they were so unchanged. It had taken some getting used to seeing her without her glasses, her face free of baby fat, the odd pimple and the previously dominating mass of frizzy hair. But her beestung lips, those were the same lips he had always noticed on his best friend. "Oh, it's a trade alright. Just not one that pays so well." He laughs as she steals his burger, glancing out the window at the darkening sky to pretend he hadn't noticed. When he looks back at her, his answer comes easily. "You're the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen on any app. In real life, too." He takes a long sip of milkshake. "But your profile too. You seemed funny, and clever, which girls as pretty as you don't tend to be... were you a late bloomer by any chance?"

[Judith Haddock]

"Awh! I'm sure you're okay at it!" her voice comforts. She remembers leafs of paper, unhidden on Huey's oak desk. She'd shyly sneak in on her school breaks to read the words of Lucas Patterson, they were an insight to a life she always felt like she was missing. "Stoooop," she begs, her cheeks becoming red with head. She flicks a fry at him and composes her embarrassment. "I wasn't though. Could have been the most popular girl in school if I wanted, I just didn't want that kind of pressure to affect my art." She takes a long sip of her milkshake. If there's one thing this diner did well, it was these. "I think you might be the most beautiful boy I've ever met. You do strike me as a bother though."

[Deleted]

"I'm OK," he agrees, and honestly she was responding more favorably to his line of work than 95% of his dates tended to. Her cheeks turn crimson and it warms him from the inside out; another glimpse of the Judith he remembered from childhood. If this had been a first date he would have been charmed by her bashfulness as much as her looks, and that's true now, even on whatever this was. "Oh that's so admirable, I'm sure your dedication really shines through your work. I wasn't popular either, too gawky." It's his turn to blush, though he quickly turns indignant. "Me? I'm the least bothersome guy on the planet! Did you get that sense from my pictures, or just my shitty choice of date venue?"