Merril gestured in a wide sweeping motion with his arm, as if to say 'look at all my fancy, hand-crafted, painstakingly polished, newer-than-new gold buttons! Just look at them, if you will!'
Emerald frowned, his hand sliding around his coffee cup. "Merril, I've told you-"
"I'm too old, Emerald," Merril said dramatically, "My years have come and gone. And what do I do? I but put upon my white shirt and tan vest, and then over that! Why, I put on my tan sweater just so I can say to ladies in passing: 'I am wearing a sweater-vest, and I know how it's done'."
"Good heavens above!" Emerald muttered crossly. Surely one day could go past without Merril making some sort of soap opera about the littlest thing. Was that too much to ask?
Emerald often wondered how much right he had in asking favours from something he didn't quite take the time to ponder. But he also felt rather firmly about avoiding confrontation and all matters that did not sit well with him. As it was, he swept most of his life under the rug- metaphorically and actually- and this aided him in such times of woe that he had not stopped since starting the habit in 1942.
Once his divorce papers had been settled, he had taken out his dustpan and broom and swept it under that rug. He did this when his eldest son had come out gay, and his second son had announced that he had spent the last five years with a Biker gang known as Blood Thugs and would continue to do so from here on out. He swept when the price of bananas had gone up and when the dreadful meth-lab incident in the south had gone down. He swept when the barber cut his hair too short, when he found a hole in his favourite pants, when the share market crashed, and when his beloved poodle lost all her hair from stress.
When life blew up, he swept it under, and he was a much happier man for it.
But this Merril and his horribly careless ways... Emerald wasn't sure he could ever sweep the fact that Merril wore a hair-piece daily on purpose because it kept up with the fashion and needed no upkeep.
"Devilishly easy to maintain!" he would cry and tap his nose for whatever god-forsaken reason. It made Emerald want to weep!
"I say here! Look at this..." Merril said in a loud exclaim of surprise.
Emerald followed his enchanted gaze and found himself looking at an elderly woman sitting two tables over from them, her silver-haired head bowed as she wrote. Her crisp aqua jacket gave no indication of actual body size, but Emerald guessed from her hands and head that she was small, especially compared to the gigantic purple handbag sitting next to her chair leg.
"Must you shout?" Emerald grumbled. "Try being discreet."
"Emmers, I just MUST get her name and number, and possibly her favourite dish, you wouldn't know if pineapple is offensive to women do you?"
"Pineapple? What is this nonsense you insult my ears with?"
Merril gave Emerald a look of childish glee. "My friend! Have you never tasted hawiian pizza?"
"Of course I ha-"
"I'll save you a slice from our second dinner..."
Emerald said, "Second?"
Merril held up his fingers in the perfect symbol, with his index and thumb together, and said, "But of course, Emmer Lemmer, we must have smoked salmon on our first!"
"Smoked salmon!" Emerald spluttered.
This was all going too far.
"Now, play it cool, chum, for I am about to embark on a mission impossible." Merril chuckled at his joke as straightened his tie and Emerald did a double take. A tie!? A great big, dark green tie sitting among tan!? He rubbed his mouth and took a quick sip of coffee. In his mind, he swept.
He swept, and swept, and banged the side of the brush to get the last of the enigmatic minuscule bits off it, and then he swept some more.
As he swept, he relaxed.
"I don't suppose you carry a walking cane, old chum?" he asked casually.
Merril had risen from his booth and stopped halfway up looking confused. "A cane?"
"Mmm." Emerald sipped, feeling a growing sense of smug. He was sweeping and he was smug and that was all that mattered. He smiled.
"Do you think I should get one?" Merril asked. He looked alarmed, as if it was something he should have thought about before.
"A lot of tricky things to consider when going about the day, isn't there?" Emerald relaxed even further. He was almost giddy with ease.
"Don't be so damned calm in a situation as dire as this!" Merril cried. He brought his fist down on the table. Emerald smiled at the fist. The aqua woman glanced up then, and Emerald caught her gaze. She had very bright eyes. Merril noticed and quickly turned too, but she had regained her studiousness leaving Merril to sag just a little.
He turned back to the lounging Emerald. "Emmer, you and I are all we have in this technical age with all the boobops and the beebips, we need to band a union and fight back!"
"Oh we must," Emerald agreed lazily. "That is a fine word old chap."
"Indeed we must seize our vitality!" boomed Merril.
"Extremely!" enthused Emerald.
"Catch hold of tomorrow!" cried Merril.
"Forthwith!" cheered Emerald.
"Raise our frames into the air and say, we refuse our service aids!"
"Couldn't have said it better, dear friend. Let us sit and ponder." Emerald took a long swig of the last dregs of coffee, and when he put it down in a resigned manner he realised Merril had gone. He had transported himself over to the aqua woman. Emerald watched them laugh and gesture, nod and smile, write on little bits of paper and wave goodbye. He noticed Merril limping slightly as he returned, however the sparkle in his eyes took over, sweeping the limp right out of Emerald's mind so more important things could light up the priority window. How very considerate, he thought.
"I've gone and done it!" Merril swooned. He plonked himself down into the booth and gave an almighty groan. There was a creaking of bone. "Ooooh, my hip ain't what it used to be."
Emerald set a stern eye on his friend. "Is she, or isn't she, a pineapple swinger?"
Merril chuckled as he poured milk into his coffee. Then he looked up and winked at his oldest, most serious, and mighty fine specimen of a friend. "I've got a yoga appointment with her at three!"
.*.
*
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