and I'll feast on the highway but I'll dream about the door

[selfmadman]

An oversized barrel-cherry red stripes zigzagging on daffodil yellow-rotates at the entrance to the funhouse, itself an arresting sight. The exterior’s been painted in a chaotic mishmash of styles (ornate, cartoonish, folksy, romantic, inept) and colors. On windy days the flags that bristle from the roof snap in the breeze

Comments

[autumnrusset]

Laura is just walking, and she pauses, her cigarette balanced on the ends of her fingers. "Hey." It's so brief it might not even be a greeting.

[selfmadman]

"Evening," he says with a nod and a smile that has more to do with the chilly New York afternoon he just left behind than her presence. "You're out here alone?"

[autumnrusset]

"Yeah, that a problem?"

[selfmadman]

Don raises his eyebrows, directs a 'can you believe this?' look to the bottom of his glass. "Who will kiss you at the top of the ferris wheel?"

[autumnrusset]

Laura gives him an dirty look. "I look like I need kissed?"

[selfmadman]

He has the grace to feign surprise at the suggestion, and although his smile isn't exactly innocent, it's not mocking, either. "Maybe you look like you need a ferris wheel ride."

He steps forward, away from the funhouse but not quite out of range of the neon, and extends his hand. "Don Draper."

ooc: Haahaha, sorry about any confusion caused by my anal-retentive, comment-deleting ways.

[autumnrusset]

Her expression changes; although it's still pretty hostile, the hostility is mixed with a deep distrust. People don't help her out. And she's always on the alert for being made fun of.

"Laura Ross," she says, without shaking his hand.

[selfmadman]

After the barest of hesitations, the snubbed hand goes to his breast pocket, where it draws a cigarette from a pack of Luckies.

"Is something the matter, Miss Ross?" he asks, fitting the cigarette between his lips and lighting up.

[autumnrusset]

"Private. Private Ross. Nothing 'cept I ain't decided what you want from me." His cigarette seems to remind her of her own, and she inhales slowly.

[selfmadman]

"That makes two of us. Private." He takes a drag on his cigarette as he puzzles over the rank, her insistence on invoking it. The aim isn't to impress, he knows that much.

[autumnrusset]

"So what's your bet?"

[selfmadman]

"You're very abrupt, you know that." A minute or so of ruminative smoking ensues. "I spend all day telling people what they want. Why don't you tell me?"

[autumnrusset]

She doesn't see fit to comment on the first statement. "For those bastards at the VA hospital to get off my back."

[selfmadman]

Don breathes out--a sigh lost in the smoker's rhythm of inhalations and exhalations--and eyes her mistrustfully. He can't settle on a single question to ask--they're cropping up like weeds, to his distinct unease.

Eventually, he says, "Where did you serve?"

[autumnrusset]

Laura looks away, her fingers starting to shake, making the little glow of the cigarette end tremble in the twilight. "Iraq."

[selfmadman]

"What?" He doesn't raise his voice, but there's an edge to it that wasn't there before.

For the first time it bothers him that he doesn't know where he is.