In Bloom

by Paul Tremblay

vertiginous

When asked, she rounds her height up to five feet two inches.

stray USB memory sticks rattling around the floor mats.

Heidi thinks he should be narrating the dry climate-change audiobook to which she’s currently listening.

The waitress interrupts his tale momentarily, once to ask whether either of them wants more coffee, then later, the check. The intrusions of the café’s reality are mere commas, and somehow, as though he anticipates them, well-timed ones.

glaring at me in the rearview mirror, which was only large enough to reflect his disappointed eyes.

He hadn’t served me a full dose of his sarcasm,