[Note: this is a work in progress.]
Act 1
Samantha sits in the diner booth and watches the orange-and-purple sunset through the dusty window.
Her contact is late, but she doesn't mind, this view is worth the wait.
She sips her coffee and skewers the last bite of apple pie onto a fork, then gobbles down the whole thing.
The last bite.
She saves the best for last, and finishing this mouth-watering apple pie in tune to a great oldies song blaring through the ancient speakers and the sunset outside is just about the best.
Sam's happy.
A car, a red sports number, pulls into the diner's driveway and blocks Samantha's view of the sunset.
It's her contact.
A bleary-eyed San Francisco hacky sack stereotype steps out on the wings of a plume of smoke and strides into the diner.
People start coughing.
He slides into Samantha's booth and quickly picks up a menu.
"What's good?"
He's not looking at her, he's focused, intently, on the plastic menu.
"You're laaaAate," Sam drawls out and tries to catch his eyes.
"Sorry.
Ran into five-oh."
Sam's eyebrows go up but she doesn't say anything, just sits and listens to the silence of the night.
The diner is not very busy and it's quiet, no screaming sirens, Roger must have dropped the heat, if it was there at all.
Sam once again reconsiders how much she trusts her supplier, but that train of thought tends to keep her awake at night, so she stops the doubt in its tracks, comes back to the moment.
"I've got the money in the car," Sam says quietly and her eyes shift towards the parking lot on the opposite side of the diner.
"It's... strange... not to order anything," Roger slurs out.
"Not if we're hooking up," Sam growls, leans forward enticingly and rests her hand on Roger's shoulder.
In preparation for the meeting, Sam remembered to unbutton her top an extra notch.
Roger shifts his posture, looks outside toward his car, puts down the menu and slides out of the booth.
"Sure, babe, let's get to that party!", he announces just a tad loudly to an uncaring diner.
They walk out to the parking lot and head toward Sam's old green Honda.
"Can't do the deal here. I got a new meetup spot, let's go there," Roger says as they approach her car.
"Why?
Take the money, I've got it right here."
Sam is growing more suspicious.
"The five-oh might after me," Roger mutters as he glances back toward the diner.
"Fuck fuck fuck, get the fuck away from me then!"
Sam mutters under her breath, pushes Roger away, and gets into her car.
She sits, grips the wheel until her knuckles turn white, and ponders things.
Their relationship is one that Sam partially regrets, but typically not enough to change anything.
She is Roger's main distributor in the small women's only college on the coast, a place where her presence is easily tolerated, while his would summon the authorities every half and hour.
In addition to the college tuition, Sam is paying her father's hospital bills with this job, a fact that Roger is well aware of.
"You need the cancer money, so meet me at this address," he says and leaves a hastily-scratched note on her windshield.
Sam looks at the address and recognizes it.
It's a spot the local high school kids call the Cicada Grove.
This is a test
of the wordpress markdown support
and I am very curious to see if it works
or not