Disclaimer: Not mine. No point in stealing.
This one, I think, should be set at least a year after the last one.
He had seen her in a bar a while after he moved to New York. Granted, it wasn't the typical place for a dame to be found, but there she was, sitting sulkily at the end of the bar, nursing a martini.
You could try to be civil. He wasn't sure when his inner voice had reverted to third person perspective, but he didn't like it.
"Er. Hello," he said to her. She sent him a sidelong glance. "May I enquire as to why a lady such as yourself would be sitting in a place such as this?" He gestured at the bartender. "Get me a scotch on the rocks for the lady."
"Yedonfrmy." He looked at her.
"Come again?"
"You don't have to do that for me." She turned to look at him.
"What if I want to?" She shrugged, her brown curly hair bouncing on her shoulders for a second before settling.
"Suit yourself." You should. He wasn't sure if the voice referred to the woman next to him or himself. They talked for a few minutes. He offered her wine.
She was Italian, (Just in case the appearance threw you off) but she was raised in Boston.
She hated the smell of coffee, especially the stuff they serve at the end of dinner parties. Almost guaranteed to be toxic waste by tomorrow, she said from her perch on his couch.
Her family owned a small business; she never told him what it was. She wanted to be a writer.
It was ridiculous, her role in life. In most cases, at least. They had ordered everything for her and provided for her and made sure she got educated, and one day she decided that she didn't want to live with her parents anyway and took a bus to New York.You could think of worse things to do. And now here she was, talking up a storm in his apartment.
"It's a nice place," she said.
"It's a place to sleep," he replied.
"A nice place to sleep, then." He left it at that, and continued working on his typewriter. Two stories sold, both based on encounters with certain ladies in his recent past. He never let her read them, and made sure to hide the magazines they were published in.
"If you've watched me write it, then what's the point of reading what you've already seen?" he asked her. She laughed and asked, Why not? He never answered that.
Her name was Andrea.
He asked if he could call her Ann. (Ahn-dray-ah, it was short for, you told her. She laughed at the mispronunciation and said yes.)
Introducing one of my favorite characters in my other, non-posted writings, Ahn-dray-ah. (I actually know a woman named Andrea who insists it be pronouced that way, in case you were wondering).