Betty couldn’t see the speaker through the thick, gray haze. His voice sounded familiar in that gravelly, half-remembered night way that shed used to think of her time in the bottle. And it wasn’t the words he used but the tone, the lilting familiarity and ease with which he placed his order. It was a simple choice: chicken, beef, or vegetarian pasta. The choice was always simple at these hotel things, even simpler for Betty now that she was off the booze and had started gaining weight.
The side offers from the conventioneers had stopped coming after she’d hit 140lbs which was a good weight for her height but too reminiscent of the wives they’d left back home for most of the traveling men. The smoke rolled as the man exhaled, his menu and hands appearing almost divorced from his actual body.
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