"There Are Smiles."

"KIMBA!"

From behind, back at Oxford's door, that annoying Jeremy voice springs after them with a smile in it and Kimberley's slow walk away fades in only two short steps to a stand still.

He's come out of the bar after her and, crap! she's going to turn around and go back up to him. He will be just there in front of or just up from the bar entrance in those stupid suspenders , silly, silly toy goatee stuck under his lower lip like a blond smudge. And, now, crap, crap, there's going to be more to this scene.

Goddamn and it was over with, too!

For the lingering moment, though, Kimberley is only standing looking down a little forward with that same bliss-ed out smiling look on her face that she's had on ever since returned to them from telling Jeremy she'd decided, at last, they should take a break from one another.

But, now, she is going to turn back crap, crap, crap!

"Kim-BER!" she is warned, not that it'll do any good!

And, up ahead of them, where she has trotted off to on the way to the car, tiny Melissa, too, in her knit cap and jacket, looking all candy pink and white like a frosted Christmas cookie, has turned back to them with shoulders hunched in tight against the cold and pleads, too,

"Kim-MY! C'mon?" in her mouse voice.

Kimberley, in the bar, in Oxford's, deciding, once and for all, that Kimberley and Jeremy needed a time out, was all excited happy. Her head tilted forward, then too, in that moment, hands gripping the sides of the little standing table they were sharing. Her face wore a big old grin - a goddam giddy I'm-going-to-do-it-I-can't-believe-I'm-really-really-going-to-do-it grin. It was like she was going to burst out and say just that. Her eyes glittered with the excitement of what she was thinking. And, then, with it done, she came back with this quiet, accomplished smile, bliss-ed out and half daffy, but in a good way.

'Lissa took a picture on her cell to commenorate the occasion.

And, like the flash had fixed it, that look hasn't gone away. It doesn't even yet fade when she does turn around and Jeremy is standing there with out even a jacket on having come out after her with only his own goofy smile.

God, these people!

Again, another useless caution,

"Kim-ber!"

But Kimmy takes in a breath along with her smile. And she's smiling even more, a smile almost like when she decided there before but not that nearly about to burst. It is like the giddiness of having chosen her course, at last, is still with her but the bliss-ed over with having actually done the thing once and for all is there, permanently, too.

And - she goes straight up to him, any way, right up to him standing waiting with his dumb comical grin.

God knows what they can have to say to one another! It isn't good that his happy, oh so smarmy confident face keeps right on looking down over her except when ever he says whatever he says and, then, he keeps looking away to one side every time like he can't look at her and say it. What ever IT is!

God! Does he even know what a clown he is?

Oxford's door stayed open behind him for some reason and ...

Inside they are playing 'More Than a Feeling,' that mom-and-dad oldie with the great riff. It comes blasting over them out the door way so there's no telling what it is they're saying to one another.

But it can't be good.

"Is she coming?" Tiny 'Lissa is returning and is curious and concerned to know.

She's drunk, of course. Her little feet mince and wobble. It's like she's walking a line. Like cops have pulled her over and she's walking a line on the pavement, failing a sobriety test.

"Who knows? Aaaaagh!"

The night is black all the way up to the pinpoint stars.

"Well," she asks, still with that curious questioning whine in her voice that becomes especially concerned just at the end, "What are they s-a-ying?"

And, now, it is plain. Too, too good to be true but - Kimberley is explaining it all to him again, what she said before. His lips are still smiling looking down on her face but he is only listening, now, and no longer talking at all and looking away at the window glass when he does.

"She's telling him it's over!"

Maybe it is over. At last!

Then, Kimberley, having said her piece and left Jeremy with nothing more he has to say, has turned and is starting slowly back to them.

But Jeremy's smile is curled, too, in a new way, now, and he watches her go a moment more looking after her appreciatively before going back into the bar. And, then, too, downward cast and private, Kimmy's blissful smile has a thoughtful sly look about it now.

"'Snot over!" little 'Lissa declares with sad certainty and cynicism.

No, it isn't over.

"Le's go," Kimmy says, walking right by them along with that smile, the small sly part of it a secret thought she thinks she's keeping to herself.

God! Fuck it!