Somewhere Over the Sun

“One of the strangest idiosyncrasies of our language is the phrase, ‘the pleasure is all mine.’” She says this as if she’s smoked all her life, as if her throat has grown immune to burning. “What an astoundingly selfish thing to express. Why do we care if someone else takes some of the pleasure? We should be saying, ‘I’m happy to share the pleasure.’”

“Who uses the word ‘idiosyncrasy’ anymore?” He actually does smoke, but he’s not holding a cigarette now. The absence feels significant, and he pretends to ash a cigarette over the balcony, pretends to watch the ash get caught up in the wind and disappear into the street below.

“I do,” she says, the wind causing her to get a mouthful of hair. It tastes like his shampoo, and she thinks back to the window in his shower, how, when he goes to work early and she gets to shower alone, she likes to slide the narrow window completely open, and tempt the world to look in on her.